KBR and ExxonMobil Catalysts and Licensing will collaborate to bring significant advancements to propane dehydrogenation (PDH) technology, according to Hydrocarbonprocessing.
Under the collaboration, ExxonMobil's new proprietary catalyst technology will be combined with KBR's proprietary K-PRO PDH technology to convert propane into propylene. Enabled by the superior performance of ExxonMobil's new catalyst, the combined technology solution could offer financial savings compared to PDH technologies currently available.
"KBR's K-PRO technology and our next generation catalyst are a great fit and our collaboration with KBR will significantly help to reduce time to commercialize our next generation catalyst for PDH," said James Ritchie, President of ExxonMobil Catalysts and Licensing LLC.
As MRC reported before, in early March 2022, ExxonMobil said it will exit a major oil and gas project and cease investing in Russia, making it the latest western oil company to cut ties with the country following its invasion of Ukraine. The Texas-based energy supermajor said it was “discontinuing operations” at the Sakhalin-1 project in Russia’s far east, one of the largest foreign-operated oil and gasfields in the country. Exxon follows BP, Shell and Norway’s Equinor, which have said they will dump stakes in projects and sell out of Russian state-backed energy groups after Moscow was hit with a barrage of western sanctions.
We remind that in February, 2022, ExxonMobil and SABIC successful started up Gulf Coast Growth Ventures world-scale manufacturing facility in San Patricio County, Texas. The new facility will produce materials used in packaging, agricultural film, construction materials, clothing, and automotive coolants. The operation includes a 1.8 MM metric tpy ethane steam cracker, two polyethylene (PE) units capable of producing up to 1.3 MM metric tpy, and a monoethylene glycol (MEG) unit with a capacity of 1.1 MM metric tpy.
Ethylene and propylene are the main feedstocks for the production of polyethylene (PE) and polypropylene (PP), respectively.
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. At the same time, PP shipments to the Russian market totalled 1,494.280 tonnes, 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