Sinopec Anqing starts up ionikylation unit to produce high octane alkylate

Sinopec Anqing Company, a subsidiary of the Sinopec Group, has successfully commissioned a 300,000 tpy (7,400 bpd) ionikylation unit for the production of high octane alkylate to meet National VI gasoline quality upgrade requirements, according to Hydrocarbonprocessing.

The Anqing alkylation unit is the third ionikylation unit in Sinopec’s portfolio and the sixth commercial project using the technology in China. In 2019 and 2020, Sinopec commissioned similar capacity ionikylation units at its Jiujiang and Wuhan refineries, respectively, with the latter installation being a revamp from an HF alkylation unit.

Ionikylation is the leading ionic liquids-based alkylation technology for the production of high octane alkylate that is free from sulfur, benzene, olefins and aromatics. The inherently safe and sustainable process allows a refiner to transition away from using hazardous and corrosive acid catalysts and additives such as HF, H2SO4 and HCl. All ionikylation process equipment is manufactured using carbon steel and the process eliminates the need for costly containment systems for handling hazardous chemicals. Well Resources Inc. is the global licensor of ionikylation.

“As the world moves towards an increasingly sustainable and decarbonized economy, the use of clean-burning transportation fuels will only become more pronounced,” said Warren Chung, President of Well Resources Inc. “Ionikylation will be used to meet evolving fuel standards while allowing operators to ensure that their staff and nearby communities are afforded the highest levels of safety.”

As MRC wrote previously, Sinopec, formally China Petroleum and Chemical Corp, has suspended the discussions to invest up to USD500 million in the new gas chemical plant in Russia. The plan has been to team up with Sibur, Russia's largest petrochemical producer, for a project similar to the USD10 billion Amur Gas Chemical Complex in East Siberia, 40% owned by Sinopec and 60% by Sibur, set to come online in 2024.

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.

China Petrochemical Corporation (Sinopec Group) is a super-large petroleum and petrochemical enterprise group established in July 1998 on the basis of the former China Petrochemical Corporation. Sinopec Group's key business activities include the exploration and production of oil and natural gas, petrochemicals and other chemical products, oil refining.
MRC

Occidental’s subsidiary Oxy Low Carbon Ventures (OLCV) and Timberland firm Weyerhaeuser have a signed a deal to evaluate and potentially develop a carbon capture and storage (CCS) project in Louisiana, said the company.

If it moves forward, the project is to be located in Livingston Parish, where OLCV’s subsidiary 1PointFive has been granted exclusive right to develop and operate a CCS unit on more than 30,000 acres of subsurface pore space controlled by Weyerhaeuser. Financial details or potential capacities were not disclosed.

OLCV will use the land to permanently sequester industrial carbon dioxide (CO2) in underground geologic formations not associated with oil and gas production, while Weyerhaeuser would continue to manage the aboveground acreage as a working forest.

“1PointFive and its planned sequestration hubs are expected to be an expanding side of our business that will work with industrial emitters to capture, transport and permanently store CO2,” said Richard Jackson, chairman of the OLCV subsidiary.

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 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.

mrchub.com

One year after its initial announcement, BASF, the world's petrochemical major, has reaffirmed its ambitious climate targets. In an update for investors and financial analysts on its transformation roadmap BASF confirmed that by 2030 it aims to reduce its GHG emissions by 25% compared with 2018 and is maintaining its goal of net zero emissions globally by 2050, according to Hydrocarbonprocessing.

On its path to reducing global emissions to 16.4 MMt by 2030, BASF is publishing an annual CO2 emissions forecast for BASF Group as part of its outlook with a corridor of plus or minus 0.5 MMt.

“There is a brutal war raging in Europe with far-reaching consequences for both people and the economy. Nevertheless, we must not lose sight of the greatest global challenge of our time - climate change,” said Dr. Martin Brudermuller, Chairman of the Board of Executive Directors of BASF SE. “Across BASF, we are working intensively to implement a large number of projects to further reduce our CO2 emissions significantly and achieve our ambitious climate targets. By cooperating with suppliers of raw materials we are also taking steps to reduce our product-related emissions. In this way, we are driving forward our transformation and supporting customers in their efforts to reduce emissions in their product portfolios.”

In 2021, BASF reduced CO2 emissions by around 3% compared with 2020 despite significantly higher production volumes. To a large extent this was due to the increased use of renewable energy. Switching power to renewable energy will be the main driver of emission reduction until 2025. In 2021, renewables accounted for 16% of BASF Group’s global power demand. By 2030, the company projects that 100% of its 2021 global power demand will be obtained from renewable sources.

To cover its demand for renewable energy, BASF is pursuing a make-and-buy strategy. This includes investing in own renewable power assets and purchasing green power from third parties. In 2021, BASF purchased a stake in Vattenfall’s wind farm Hollandse Kust Zuid (HKZ). Once fully operational, it will be the world’s largest offshore wind farm with a total installed capacity of 1.5 gigawatts. The project is expected to become fully operational in 2023.

Furthermore, BASF has signed 25-year power purchase agreements (PPAs) with ENGIE and Orsted for the supply of significant amounts of renewable electricity from wind and solar power in Europe. In the US, BASF has concluded long-term supply contracts for wind and solar power for its Freeport and Pasadena sites. In China, BASF has signed agreements with suppliers for the purchase of renewable power for its new Verbund site in Zhanjiang.

At its Investor Update event, BASF provided an overview of the various measures the company is implementing at different sites to reach its corporate climate targets. Such measures largely depend on the specific local conditions at each site.

Currently, about 50% of the steam demand at the Ludwigshafen site is based on steam generation processes that produce CO2 emissions. A new approach here is to generate steam using electricity. BASF is working with Siemens Energy on a first project in the acetylene plant that uses heat pumps and vapor recompression to upgrade waste heat such that it can be used as steam for the steam grid of the site. The integration of this heat pump project will enable not only the production of around 60 metric t of steam per hour but will also avoid around 160,000 metric tpy of CO2 emissions and reduce the annual consumption of cooling water by more than 20 MM cubic meters. The planned start-up for the use of this technology is in the 2Q of 2024. The project also serves to collect day-to-day operational experience and to simplify the rollout to other sites in the future.

Another project pursued at the Ludwigshafen site is the development of an electrically heated steam cracker furnace. Currently, cracker furnaces are heated with gas and produce about 1 metric t of CO2 per metric ton of olefin. BASF has signed an agreement with SABIC and Linde to develop and pilot electrically heated steam cracker furnaces. The project for a multi-megawatt pilot plant in Ludwigshafen is progressing as planned and is on track to start up in 2023 subject to a positive public funding decision. For the CO2-free production of hydrogen, BASF is developing new processes such as methane pyrolysis.

BASF’s Verbund site in Antwerp is the largest chemical production site in Belgium and BASF’s second largest Verbund site after Ludwigshafen. BASF aspires to reduce emissions at the site from 3.8 MM metric t in 2021 to close to net zero by 2030. This could become possible by importing green power from offshore wind parks in combination with the deployment of new, low-emission technologies and a planned large-scale CCS project in the port of Antwerp. If this aspiration is realized, the Antwerp site could become the first petrochemical site to approach net zero in 2030. Given the short time period involved, these efforts constitute a challenge, and support is needed from politics in setting the right framework conditions.

Zhanjiang is to become BASF’s third largest Verbund site. An advanced Verbund concept and the use of renewable energy will play the key role in significantly lowering the site’s CO2 emissions compared to a gas-powered petrochemical site. Replacing fossil-fuel energy by electricity from renewable sources is a main lever.

A few days ago, BASF signed a second framework agreement over 25 years with the State Power Investment Corporation Limited (SPIC) under the new renewable energy trading rules in Guangdong province, China, to purchase the renewable electricity supply for the next phases of the Zhanjiang Verbund site in Guangdong province. This agreement is the largest volume and longest green electricity purchase framework agreement that has been signed in China. Supported by this deal and the partnerships with other energy suppliers, BASF is further accelerating its plan to power the entire Zhanjiang Verbund site with renewable electricity and targets to achieve 100% by 2025 – earlier than originally planned. With the use of renewable electricity, BASF is a frontrunner in the process industry in China.

In February 2022, BASF Schwarzheide GmbH and enviaM established a JV for a solar park which has an expected electricity production of 25 gigawatt hours per year, about 10% of the site’s current annual electricity demand. It will be the first major solar power plant in which BASF is directly involved. The solar power can be used for the production of battery materials for electromobility, which will be produced in Schwarzheide from the end of 2022. The modernization of the site’s own combined gas and steam turbine power plant is almost complete. Once it is started up later in 2022, it will produce 10% more electricity with 16% lower CO2 emissions thanks to higher fuel efficiency.

As MRC reported previously, BASF is to increase its production capacity for plastic additives at its sites in Pontecchio Marconi, Italy and Lampertheim, Germany. BASF did not disclose, however, current or future capacities for its production of plastic additives hindered amine light stabilizers (HALS).

We remind that BASF is strengthening its global catalyst development and helping customers to bring new products faster to the market. As part of this strategy, BASF is building a new pilot plant center at its Ludwigshafen site. The new Catalyst Development and Solids Processing Center will serve as a global hub for pilot-scale production and process innovations of chemical catalyst.

BASF is the leading chemical company. It produces a wide range of chemicals, for example solvents, amines, resins, glues, electronic-grade chemicals, industrial gases, basic petrochemicals and inorganic chemicals. The most important customers for this segment are the pharmaceutical, construction, textile and automotive industries.
MRC

China Petroleum & Chemical Corporation (Sinopec), the country's largest oil refiner, said its net profit rose 114% in 2021 from the previous year, said the company.

The net profit attributable to shareholders of the parent company stood at 71.21 billion yuan (11.18 billion U.S. dollars) in 2021, the company said on Sunday. Its operating revenue reached 2.74 trillion yuan last year, up 30.2%year on year.

The domestic crude oil output was 35.15 million tonnes last year, the overseas crude oil output was 4.18 million tonnes, and the natural gas output was 33.97 billion cubic meters.

The company's total sales volume of refined oil was 221 million tonnes last year. Its annual ethylene output was 13.38 million tonnes, a year-on-year increase of 10.9%.

The company expects global economic recoveries to persist and the Chinese economy to continue stable growth in 2022 and its long-term uptrend remains unchanged. The company predicts that Chinese domestic demand of gasoline and diesel will recover this year, while demand of natural gas and chemicals will keep growing. Sinopec also expects bigger volatilities on crude prices this year.

The company targets CNY198bn of Capex in 2022, with CNY66.1bn for chemical sector, including the ethylene projects in Tianjin and Hainan.

As it was written earlier, Sinopec will divest a 50% stake in Shanghai SECCO Petrochemical for a price of Yuan 10.3 bn (USD1.6 bn). The 50% stake comprises of 15% that is owned directly by Sinopec and 35% owned by its offshoot Sinopec Gaoqiao Petrochemical. Previously, Shanghai SECCO was 50% owned by BP East China, with Sinopec and Sinopec Shanghai Petrochemical holding 30% and 20% stakes, respectively. The interest of BP was sold to Sinopec Gaoqiao Petrochemical in 2017.

mrchub.com

FRX Polymers announces that the company’s polymeric phosphorus-based flame retardants Nofia CO3000, Nofia CO4000 and Nofia CO6000 have been granted a GreenScreen Benchmark 3 score, according to SpecialChem.

Nofia polymeric flame retardants uniquely offer the assurance of the coveted GreenScreen 3 Benchmark score, without compromising fire safety while simultaneously achieving exceptional and often superior physical properties.

This is one of the industry’s highest green non-toxic indicators of ESG compliance. GreenScreen is one of the most broadly recognized methods of comparative benchmarking chemical toxicity in the chemical industry.

This certification comes at an opportune time as it complements a series of recent actions taken by the European Union, as part of its Eco-design regulation, and by the State of New York, which bans the use of all brominated flame retardants in consumer electronic displays such as TVs and monitors.

Marc Lebel, chief executive officer of FRX, commented, “The new EU and US legislation will cause an industry-wide transformation to green flame retardant formulations in consumer products and will quickly materialize into significant demand for non-brominated fire retardants, especially polymeric solutions like Nofia.”

“We are already seeing compliance with this initiative being both pushed by national consumer electronics retailers in the US and responded to by leading OEM manufacturers throughout the world. This is just the start of an important shift away from hazardous flame retardants into solutions that offer the same flame retardant efficacy, without the health and environmental liabilities,” added Lebel.

GreenScreen is well recognized across the global electronics supply chain, being referenced and relied upon by many green NGOs and major OEMs, with Hewlett Packard being one of the earliest adopters.

FRX management believes that this GreenScreen accreditation is further validation of the human health and environmental credentials of the Nofia range of halogen-free, polymeric flame retardants.

These copolymer grades of Nofia® join the other homopolymer grades of Nofia flame retardants previously granted a GreenScreen Benchmark 3, suitable for the most demanding high flow, molding and/or sheet extrusion applications. FRX’s current commercial production of Nofia® flame retardants is already serving major OEMs around the world and the Company plans to further expand capacity to meet growing demand.

As MRC reported earlier, FRX Polymers, Inc., a producer of polymeric halogen-free flame retardants, has earned ISO 9001:2015 certification from the International Organization for Standardization (ISO), effective from 6 February 2017. ISO 9001:2015 is the international standard that specifies requirements for a company-wide quality management system (QMS).

FRX Polymers, Inc. was founded in 2007 following over five years of intensive research and development in the field of inherently flame retardant plastics. The company operates two pilot plants in Chelmsford MA, a polymer pilot plant in Switzerland and a full scale plant in Antwerp Belgium.
MRC