Hyosung Vina Chemical restarted cracker and PP plant

Hyosung Vina Chemical has reportedly restarted its propane dehydrogenation (PDH) unit in Vietnam earlier this week after taking the unit offline on 4 February 2022 for maintenance, said Commonplast.

The 600,000 tons/year PDH plant is currently ramping up operating rates. However, market sources said that the producer might opt to keep the utilization rate at about 70% capacity amid the sluggish PP demand and high feedstock costs.

In addition, Hyosung has also restarted the No. 2 PP plant at the same complex. The unit with an annual output of 300,000 tons/year was taken offline together with the cracker in February.

As per MRC, Hyosung Vina Chemicals, a subsidiary of a large petrochemical manufacturer in South Korea - Hyosung Corporation, on February 4 stopped production at a propane dehydrogenation plant in Cai Mep (Vietnam) in order to carry out planned preventive measures to repair equipment. Maintenance at this unit with a capacity of 600 thousand tons of propylene per year continued until the beginning of March this year.

Hyosung Corporation is a Korean industrial conglomerate founded in 1957. The company operates in various fields, including the petrochemical industry, heavy equipment manufacturing, IT, trade and construction.
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MRC) -- Vitol has entered into a strategic partnership with Danish company WPU, which recycles waste plastic into plastic oils, said Hydrocarbonprocessing.

Vitol will offtake and market the recycled plastic oils generated by WPU’s new pyrolysis plant in Faarevejle in Odsherred Municipality north of Copenhagen, which is expected to open in early 2023, with an additional two plants to be opened by Q3 2023. The combined capacity of these plants will be 160,000 metric tpy of waste plastic.

Plastic can be recycled mechanically up to 6-7 times. At this point, the building blocks in the plastic are so damaged that they need to be incinerated or deposited in landfill. However, through pyrolysis WPU can now convert obsolete plastic into new products. The transformation from waste to sustainable energy is based on a technology called pyrolysis that processes the plastic at high temperatures. The plastic oils can be used in the production of new plastic products or as recycled carbon fuels.

Chris Bake, head of origination, Vitol said, “Each year over 17 MMt of waste plastic is generated in the EU, recycling plastics locally minimizes transport emissions and supports European chemicals businesses. We intend to be an integral part of Europe’s circular economy and are delighted to be taking this important step with WPU."

Niels Stielund, Chairman of the Board at WPU said, “The strategic partnership with Vitol enables WPU to continue a strong future production line. We could not have wished for a better partnership. Vitol, with its deep knowledge of the global energy markets and sustainable fuels, is in a perfect position to support us in our further development and expansion."

As per MRC, Phillips 66, Uniper and Vitol-owned VPI Immingham have signed a Memorandum of Understanding to install post-combustion CO2 capture equipment on two of VPI Immingham's three gas-fired power generators and selected processing units at the Humber and Lindsay refineries. Blue hydrogen is produced from natural gas with the addition of carbon capture. Green hydrogen is produced via electrolysis using renewable electricity to split water into hydrogen and oxygen.

We remind, Unipec and Vitol have won a tender to supply Bangladesh Petroleum Corp (BPC) with up to 1.06 million tons of oil products in the first half of 2020 after placing the lowest offers. State-owned BPC is seeking 760,000-880,000 tons of gasoil with a sulfur content of 500 parts per million, 110,000 tons of jet fuel, 40,000 tons of 180-centistoke high-sulfur fuel oil and 30,000 tons of 95-octane gasoline.

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Occidental Petroleum said it agreed to sell emissions-offsetting carbon credits to jet-maker Airbus under a deal that advances the US oil producer's budding energy transition business, reported Reuters.

The four-year agreement sets the stage for Occidental to go ahead on an investment decision for what would be the world's largest plant designed to suck CO2 out of the air and bury it underground, helping to mitigate global warming.

The value of the agreement was not disclosed. Occidental has scheduled an investor update on its low carbon business for Wednesday.

Occidental said construction on its direct air capture (DAC) facility is expected to begin in the second half of this year in the Permian basin, the top US shale oil field in western Texas and southeastern New Mexico. The plant's location has not been disclosed.

The plant is expected to have a carbon removal capacity 100 times bigger than all 19 DAC plants currently operating worldwide combined, according to the International Energy Agency.

The potential cost of the project has not been disclosed. Construction was expected to take around two years.

Occidental's direct air capture facility has a goal of removing 1 MMtpy of CO2 from the atmosphere, equivalent to emissions from almost 200,000 cars. A project in Iceland able to remove emissions from 790 cars was considered the world's largest one year ago.

As MRC wrote previously, Occidental Petroleum's low-carbon unit said in May 2021 it plans to construct and operate a pilot plant that would use human-made carbon dioxide, instead of hydrocarbon-sourced feedstocks, to produce bio-ethylene. The pilot plant will be jointly developed by Occidental's venture capital arm, Oxy Low Carbon Ventures LLC, and bio-engineering startup, Cemvita Factory. It is expected to start functioning in 2022. Bio-ethylene is currently made from bio-ethanol, which is made from sugarcane.

Ethylene is the main feedstock for the production of polyethylene (PE).

According to MRC's ScanPlast report, Russia's estimated PE consumption totalled 2,487,450 tonnes in 2021, up by 13% year on year. Shipments of all grades of ethylene polymers increased.
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Evonik has launched a new biosurfactant produced from renewable feedstocks, said the company.

The rhamnolipids are produced at Evonik’s plant in Slovenska Lupca, Slovakia following a triple-digit million-euro investment in the site, which is scheduled to be completed by the end of 2023. The biosurfactant range is made using feedstocks which are locally sourced and fully biodegradable, meeting demand for low-emission, low-impact cleaning products in the market.

As Evonik holds the IP-protected manufacturing process, this enables them to sell a unique product on the market and is a step towards shifting its Nutrition & Care life sciences business segment towards system solutions. System solutions have high growth prospects and above-average margin potential, and Evonik plans to increase the share of system solutions in its Nutrition and Care segment from 20% to more than 50% by 2030.

As MRC reported before, Evonik is investing a three-digit million-euro sum in the construction of a new production plant for bio-based and fully biodegradable rhamnolipids. The decision to build the plant follows a breakthrough in Evonik's research and development. Rhamnolipids are biosurfactants and serve as active ingredients in shower gels and detergents. Demand for environ-mentally friendly surfactants is growing rapidly worldwide.

We remind that in February, 2020, Dow and Evonik entered into an exclusive technology partnership. Together, they plan to bring a unique method for directly synthesizing propylene glycol (PG) from propylene and hydrogen peroxide to market maturity.

Evonik is one of the world leaders in specialty chemicals. The company is active in more than 100 countries around the world and generated sales of EUR12.2 billion and an operating profit (adjusted EBITDA) of EUR1.91 billion in 2020. Evonik goes far beyond chemistry to create innovative, profitable and sustainable solutions for customers. About 33,000 employees work together for a common purpose: to improve life today and tomorrow.
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With Tepex, LANXESS is one of the leading manufacturers of fiber-reinforced thermoplastic composites for lightweight and highly mechanically resilient structural components, said the company.

The specialty chemicals company offers a composite range called Tepex flowcore for numerous variations of the compression molding process. This product line has now been expanded and optimized.

The new composites are designed as alternatives to thermoset sheet molding compounds (SMCs). Offering similar mechanical performance, they are much more ductile and, as thermoplastic systems, much easier to recycle than SMCs. They are easy to process because they are molded and shaped by thermal means only.

“We are targeting Tepex flowcore primarily at large underbody paneling components and load compartment wells for cars, but also at components such as large casings and battery covers,” says Sabrina Anders, project manager for Tepex flowcore at LANXESS High Performance Materials business unit.

Tepex flowcore has already proved its worth in series production, such as in a bumper beam for a mid-size sedan from a Japanese car manufacturer.

As per MRC, LANXESS said it was suspending its business activities in Russia due to the war in Ukraine. Thus, the company had “suspended business activities with Russian customers as far as contractually possible until further notice” and had suspended all investments in Russia. Its sales in Russia and Ukraine made up less than 1% of its global sales, it said. Sanctions imposed by Western countries on Russia following its invasion of Ukraine have fuelled a global surge in wholesale power and gas prices, which chemical companies are attempting to offset by passing the increases on to customers.

As MRC reported before, in October 2021, specialty chemicals company LANXESS and energy company bp entered into a strategic partnership for the use of sustainable raw materials in high-tech plastics production. bp will supply sustainably produced cyclohexane to the LANXESS’ production site in Antwerp, Belgium, starting in the fourth quarter of 2021. The sustainable origin of the raw materials is certified according to ISCC Plus rules (“International Sustainability and Carbon Certification”). With this partnership, both companies, which already have a long-standing business relationship, want to significantly advance the production of sustainable plastics.

LANXESS is a leading specialty chemicals company with about 19,200 employees in 25 countries. The company is currently represented at 74 production sites worldwide. The core business of Lanxess is the development, manufacturing and marketing of chemical intermediates, additives, specialty chemicals and plastics. Through Arlanxeo, the joint venture with Saudi Aramco, Lanxess is also a leading supplier of synthetic rubber.
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