Kiyanly Polymer Plant resumed export PP purchases

MOSCOW (MRC) -- ExxonMobil has completed its first commercial sale of certified circular polymers, using its Exxtend technology for advanced recycling of plastic waste, said Hydrocarbonprocessing.

The purchaser is Berry Global, which will use the circular polymers to manufacture containers for high-performance food-grade packaging on a mass balance approach.

"We are scaling up our advanced recycling capabilities around the world to manufacture more circular products for our customers,” said Karen McKee, president of ExxonMobil Chemical Company. “Our Exxtend technology helps us meet the growing demand for certified circular polymers, particularly in food contact applications where plastic products provide key sustainability benefits." Exxtend technology helps expand the range of plastic materials that society recycles, while maintaining the performance of products over multiple recycling loops. Product quality and performance of the certified circular polymers are identical to polymers produced from virgin raw materials, increasing the variety and number of customer applications.

“We have ambitious sustainable packaging goals that include achieving 30% circular content across our fast-moving consumer goods packaging by 2030,” said Tarun Manroa, chief strategy officer of Berry Global. “Advanced recycling can help our customers meet their sustainability goals and accelerate the move to a more circular economy. Collaboration across the value chain is critical to achieving this." The initial sale of certified circular polymers is based on plastic waste processed at ExxonMobil’s advanced recycling facility at its site in Baytown, Texas. The facility began operations in 2021 and has already processed more than 4-MM pounds of plastic waste.

The operation in Baytown will be among North America’s largest advanced plastic waste recycling facilities with a capacity to recycle 30,000 metric tpy of plastic waste when its expansion is complete later this year. Leveraging ExxonMobil’s existing assets, the company’s advanced recycling capabilities can be rapidly scaled to process a wide range of plastic waste. To help meet the growing market demand for certified circular plastics, ExxonMobil plans to increase its annual advanced recycling capacity to 500,000 metric t, or approximately 1 B pounds, by year-end 2026 across multiple sites globally.

The company has obtained certifications through the International Sustainability and Carbon Certification Plus (ISCC PLUS) process for several of its facilities including Baytown. ISCC PLUS is widely recognized by industry as an effective system to certify the circularity of products based on advanced recycling using mass balance attribution of plastic waste.

As MRC informed before, ExxonMobil shut down at its cracker in Singapore for maintenance last year. Thus, the company halted operations at the cracker on September 14, 2020. The cracker remained off-line till end-October, 2020. Located at Jurong Island, Singapore, the cracker has an ethylene production capacity of 1 million mt/year and a propylene production capacity of 450,000 mt/year.

According to MRC's ScanPlast report, PP shipments to the Russian market totalled 1,494.280 tonnes in 2021, up by 21% year on year. Deliveries of homopolymer PP and PP block copolymers increased, whreas.shipments of PP random copolymers decreased significantly.

ExxonMobil is the largest non-government owned company in the energy industry and produces about 3% of the world's oil and about 2% of the world's energy.
MRC

MOSCOW (MRC) -- Carbios and Indorama Ventures jointly announce a collaboration to build a manufacturing plant operating Carbios’ polyethylene terephthalate (PET) bio-recycling technology at Indorama Ventures’ PET production site in Longlaville, France, said Hydrocarbonprocessing.

The goal is to build and operate in France the world’s first industrial-scale enzymatic PET bio-recycling plant by 2025. The processing capacity is estimated at 50,000 tpy of post-consumer PET waste, equivalent to 2-B PET bottles or 2.5-B PET trays.

After the positive results of Indorama Ventures’ initial analysis on the technical soundness of Carbios’ technology over the past several months, both parties agreed to complete a due diligence process. A feasibility study will be conducted for the industrialization of Carbios’ technology on Indorama Ventures’ French production site. Subject to the successful completion of these technical and economical evaluations, Indorama Ventures would co-invest in the project.

"We are pleased to implement Carbios’ innovative and transformative technology at our Longlaville site. Bio-recycled PET addresses customers’ growing demand to contribute to a cleaner planet through high-quality plastics while decreasing the use of hydrocarbons,” said D K Agarwal, Chief Executive Officer of Indorama Ventures.

The capital investment required for the project is expected to be around €150 MM for Carbios core technology, including in particular an additional purification step, which has been integrated into the process. In addition, an estimated €50 MM investment will be allocated for the infrastructure preparation of the site. The project is expected to create approximatively 150 direct and indirect full-time jobs. In the coming months, Carbios expects to finalize a strong non-dilutive financial support from French Government and from the Grand-Est Region, based on the offer received last week by Carbios, from the Minister of Industry, Agnes Pannier-Runacher and the President of Grand-Est Region, Jean Rottner.

This financial support will be conditional on the notification to the European Commission and on contractualization by French authorities. Carbios announced in its half-year results on the 30th September 2021 a cash position of EUR112 MM. Since then, Carbios has also secured a EUR30-MM loan from EIB.

Carbios’ technology, C-ZYME, converts PET—the dominant polymer in bottles, trays and textiles made of polyester—into its core monomers, which can then be used to manufacture 100% recycled and infinitely recyclable PET.

"We are very pleased that Carbios and Indorama Ventures have chosen France to build their first 100% bio-recycled PET manufacturing plant," said Bruno Le Maire, French Minister of the Economy, Finance and the Recovery. "From cutting-edge science, Carbios has developed a disruptive technology and process that enables efficient transformation of plastic waste into novel valuable products. This breakthrough project showcases the government’s ambition within France (to get) ready for the challenges of the next decade. Combining biotechnology and a renewed industrial ambition will be key to achieve a more circular economy."

As per MRC, Indorama Ventures Public Company Limited, a global petrochemical producer, started developing a new technology center under its Integrated Oxides & Derivatives (IOD) business at The Woodlands, Texas. The new facility will be the company’s U.S. research and development hub for new products used in the home, personal and industrial cleaning, agrochemicals, energy, lubricants, mining, and coatings markets.

IVL’s integrated oxides and derivatives site at The Woodlands, Texas, was acquired from Huntsman in January 2020.

Indorama Ventures Public Company Limited, listed in Thailand (Bloomberg ticker IVL.TB), is one of the world’s leading petrochemicals producers, with a global manufacturing footprint across Africa, Asia Pacific, Europe and Americas. The company’s portfolio comprises Integrated PET, Olefins, Fibers, Packaging and Specialty Chemicals. Indorama Ventures products serve major FMCG and automotive sectors, i.e. beverages, hygiene, personal care, tire and safety segments. Indorama Ventures has approx. 24,000 employees worldwide and consolidated revenue of US$ 11.4 billion in 2019. The Company is listed in the Dow Jones Emerging Markets and World Sustainability Indices (DJSI).
MRC

MOSCOW (MRC) -- Braskem announced the expansion of its circular polymer portfolio to include two new polypropylene grades with post-consumer recycled (PCR) content, said Hydrocarbonprocessing.

Braskem's new PCR polypropylene grades can be used in a wide range of U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) food contact applications where polypropylene is used today, including consumer packaging, caps and closures, housewares, and a wide range of thermoforming applications.

Geoffrey Inch, Braskem North America Sustainability Director said, "today's announcement is another milestone in Braskem's journey to a carbon neutral circular economy, and reinforces our commitment to polypropylene as the polypropylene leader in North America. Not only will Braskem's new PCR polypropylene grades help our clients meet their commitments for recycled content in FDA food-contact markets, where PCR solutions are limited today, these developments will also keep us on track to reach our goals of providing 300,000 t of thermoplastic resins and chemicals with recycled content by 2025 and 1 MMt of thermoplastic resins and chemicals with recycled content by 2030."

Braskem's thermoforming grade contains 25% post-consumer recycled content and meets the requirements for certain FDA food contact applications, including high temperature packaging. This grade is best suited for thermoforming applications which can be utilized for a variety of applications including food retail and food service trays, coffee lids and several other packaging products.

Braskem's C&C grade contains 25% post-consumer recycled content and meets the requirements for certain FDA food contact applications. This grade is best suited for injection molded caps and closures in segments such as food and beverage, health, hygiene, and cosmetics.

As per MRC, Brazilian industrial conglomerate Novonor is considering exiting its majority stake in petrochemical company Braskem SA via a secondary share offering. Novonor, formerly known as Odebrecht, had previously organized a competitive merger and acquisition process in an attempt to attract bidders for its stake in Braskem. After that process failed, various media outlets, including Reuters, reported that Novonor was planning to exit Braskem via a share offering.

We remind that Brazilian petrochemical producer Braskem's 450,000 mt/year PP plant in LaPorte, Texas, along the Houston Ship Channel completed its initial commercial production, as per the company's statement as of Sept. 10. "The launch of commercial production at our new world-class PP production line in La Porte clearly affirms Braskem's position as the North American polypropylene market leader," Braskem America CEO Mark Nikolich said in a statement. With a USD750 million investment, the new PP plant's construction started in October 2017 and was completed in June, 2020.

Braskem operates five other US PP plants in Texas, Pennsylvania, and West Virginia, with a cumulative capacity of 1.57 million mt/year that the company acquired. The new plant in La Porte, Texas, is Braskem America's first PP new build.

Braskem S.A. produces petrochemicals and generates electricity. The Company produces ethylene, propylene, benzene, toluene, xylenes, butadiene, butene, isoprene, dicyclopentediene, MTBE, caprolactam, ammonium sulfate, cyclohexene, polyethylene theraphtalat, polyethylene, and polyvinyl chloride (PVC).
MRC

1. HollyFrontier Corporation reports Q4 and full year results

MOSCOW (MRC) -- HollyFrontier Corp posted a wider-than-expected quarterly loss on Wednesday, as the U.S. refiner faced heavy refining maintenance and weather-related downtime, sending its shares down as much as 8%, said Hydrocarbonprocessing. Flooding in British Columbia, Canada, cut crude oil supplies to Puget Sound refinery and severe weather conditions and operating problems restricted output at processing plants in New Mexico and Oklahoma, HollyFrontier said last month. Its refinery utilization in the reported quarter fell to 83.6%, from 93.8% in the previous year and total operating costs and expenses also rose nearly 88% to USD5.64 B. On an adjusted basis, the company posted a quarterly loss of 11 cents per share, slightly bigger than average analysts' expectation of 9 cents per share, according to Refinitiv IBES. For the current quarter, HollyFrontier expects to run between 490,000 and 510,000 bpd of crude.


MRC