Borealis to build plant to purify py oil from chem recycling

Borealis plans to build a plant in Stenungsund, Sweden that will upgrade pyrolysis oil (py oil) produced from chemically recycling plastics, said the company.

Under a licence agreement, Borealis will use Axens's Rewind Mix process technology for the unit, Axens said. The company will provide the process design package as well as the proprietary equipment, catalysts and adsorbents. The plant could start operations in 2025, pending a final investment decision (FID), Axens said. It will have a capacity to process 50,000 tonnes/year of pyrolysis oil.

The purified py oil will resemble virgin material, which could then be processed in a cracker to make feedstock for plastics, Axens said. Axens said the upgrading unit is a key part of the proposed chemical recycling plant that Borealis could build in Stenungsund. Axens did not provide details about the chemical recycling plant. ”Borealis has set ambitious targets to create a circular economy for plastic, as a part of our sustainability journey,” said Anders Froberg, Borealis director of manufacturing excellence and transformation.

We remind, Borealis (Vienna), a leading producer of polyolefins, has delayed the start-up of a new, world-scale propane dehydrogenation (PDH) plant at its existing production site at Kallo, Belgium, which is the company's biggest investment in Europe, until Q3 2023, citing Covid-19. The plant in Kallo in the port of Antwerp was previously targeted to begin operations by the end of next year.

Borealis is owned by OMV AG and Mubadala Investment Co., the Abu Dhabi state investment company. Borealis is a leading provider of innovative solutions in the fields of polyolefins, base chemicals and fertilizers. With headquarters in Vienna, Austria, Borealis currently employs around 6,500 and operates in over 120 countries.
mrchub.com

A fire at Chembond Chemicals’ plant in Maharasthra, India has killed one person, said the company.

The fire, which broke out at the plant in Tarapur at 9:30 am India time (04:30 GMT) on 21 April , was immediately brought under control, the company said in a filing to the Bombay Stock Exchange (BSE). “The cause of the fire will be assessed in due course,” it added.

Operations at the plant have been temporarily suspended as the fire had damaged raw materials and finished goods stored at the plant, the machinery and the building, Chembond said. The plant will resume operations once it receives necessary approvals from statutory authorities, it added.

In addition to this, the fire has resulted in damage to raw materials and finished goods stored in the plant, the machinery and building, thereby disrupting the operations of the plant.

In a filing the company said, "Production operation at the said plant is suspended temporarily until the survey by the Insurance company. We would like to clarify that the Company has adequate insurance coverage and has given the required intimation to the Insurance company. Insurance survey is expected to be conducted in due course."

It further added, "The Company is in the process of ascertaining the actual loss caused due to the fire. We are undertaking adequate measures to ensure refunctioning of the plant at the earliest subject to obtaining of necessary approvals from statutory authorities."

As per MRC, a fire and chlorine spill at Olin Corp’s plant in Plaquemine, a tenant at the Dow Chemical facility, was reported to Iberville Sheriff’s office around 8:40 p.m., sheriff’s office official Clint Moore told Reuters by telephone.
Louisiana authorities lifted a shelter-in-place order within five hours of issuing it after a chlorine leak on Monday.

Also, an explosion at illegal oil refining depot in Nigeria's Rivers state has killed over 100 people overnight. "The fire outbreak occurred at an illegal bunkering site and it affected over 100 people who were burnt beyond recognition," the state commissioner for petroleum resources, Goodluck Opiah, said. As MRC informed earlier, Dangote's 650,000-bpd oil refinery being built in Nigeria is due to begin production by the 4Q of 2022.
mrchub.com

Linde will increase its helium supply to the US, the industrial gases major announced.

The UK-based producer signed a new long-term helium off-take agreement to recover gas contained in Freeport’s liquefied natural gas (LNG) production site in Texas.

Linde will also construct a new helium processing plant in Freeport to purify and liquify recovered helium, which will provide an additional source of supply for liquid helium in the US.

The plant is scheduled to come online in 2024 with capacity of 200m cubic feet (mcf) which will be supplied to strong growth markets including aerospace, electronics, healthcare and manufacturing.

We remind, BASF, SABIC and Linde have signed a joint agreement to develop and demonstrate solutions for electrically heated steam cracker furnaces. The partners have already jointly worked on concepts to use renewable electricity instead of the fossil fuel gas typically used for the heating process.

As per MRC, JSC SIBUR-Neftekhim and JSC Linde Gas Rus signed an agreement on the utilization of carbon dioxide formed in the technological process of SIBUR.

Linde is a global leader in the production, processing, storage and distribution of hydrogen. It has the largest hydrogen liquefaction capacity and gaseous hydrogen pipeline distribution system anywhere in the world. The company operates the world's first high-purity hydrogen storage cavern plus pipeline networks totaling approximately 1,000 kilometers globally, to reliably supply its customers. Linde is at the forefront in the transition to clean hydrogen and has installed 200 hydrogen fueling stations and 80 hydrogen electrolysis plants worldwide. The company offers the latest electrolysis technology through its world class engineering organization, key alliances and partnerships.
mrchub.com

ExxonMobil has made three new discoveries offshore Guyana and increased its estimate of the recoverable resource for the Stabroek Block to nearly 11 billion oil-equivalent barrels, said the company.

The three discoveries are southeast of the Liza and Payara developments and bring to five the discoveries made by ExxonMobil in Guyana in 2022.

The Barreleye-1 well encountered approximately 230 feet (70 meters) of hydrocarbon-bearing sandstone and was drilled in 3,840 feet (1,170 meters) of water. Drilling at Patwa-1 encountered 108 feet (33 meters) of hydrocarbon-bearing sandstone and was conducted in 6,315 feet (1,925 meters) of water. The Lukanani-1 well encountered 115 feet (35 meters) of hydrocarbon-bearing sandstone and was drilled in a water depth of 4,068 feet (1,240 meters). Operations are ongoing at Barreleye-1 and Lukanani-1.

“These discoveries and the updated resource estimate increase the confidence we have in our ambitious exploration strategy for the Stabroek Block and will help to inform our future development plans for the southeast part of the block,” said Liam Mallon, president of ExxonMobil Upstream Company. “ExxonMobil remains committed to delivering value at an accelerated pace to the people of Guyana, our partners and shareholders and reliably supplying affordable energy to meet increasing demand around the world."

ExxonMobil currently has four sanctioned projects offshore Guyana. Liza Phase 1 is producing approximately 130,000 barrels per day using the Liza Destiny floating production storage and offloading (FPSO) vessel. Liza Phase 2, which started production in February, is steadily ramping up to its capacity of 220,000 barrels per day using the Liza Unity FPSO. The third project, Payara, is expected to produce 220,000 barrels per day; construction on its production vessel, the Prosperity FPSO, is running approximately five months ahead of schedule with start-up likely before year-end 2023. The fourth project, Yellowtail, is expected to produce 250,000 barrels per day when the ONE GUYANA FPSO comes online in 2025.

As per MRC, ExxonMobil Corp is considering a complete withdrawal from Russia by June 24. Exxon Mobil has not provided a timetable for the withdrawal but last month removed employees who are US citizens from Russia after Moscow launched what it calls its special military operation in Ukraine.

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.
mrchub.com

Amcor, a global leader in developing and producing responsible packaging solutions, announced an investment to establish new thermoforming capabilities for medical packaging in its Sligo, Ireland, healthcare packaging facility, said the company.

The multi-million-dollar investment will strengthen Amcor’s leadership in the growing industry for sterile packaging, offering customers in Europe and North America another site with comprehensive healthcare solutions.

"The additional capabilities in our Sligo site allow us to provide customers with even more differentiated and efficient solutions to meet their healthcare packaging needs,” said Amcor’s Chief Commercial Officer Peter Konieczny. “With our global scale and innovation capabilities, Amcor is uniquely positioned to capture growing demand for both medical and pharmaceutical packaging products globally."

Through this investment, the Sligo site will feature Class 7 cleanroom manufacturing environments and state-of-the art thermoforming operations, fully certified to ISO 13485 standards and meeting the highest regulatory requirements. Amcor will also create a full design studio to support product development, enabling customers to tap into local and global expertise and resources across the company’s growing network of global innovation centers.

According to Market Data Forecast, the European medical device segment, which relies on this type of packaging, is expected to grow at annual rate of more than 4%, reaching $171 billion by 2027. With this investment in Ireland and the new facility in Singapore that came online at the end of 2021, Amcor is actively meeting the growing global demands of customers in the medical and pharmaceutical industries.

As per MRC, Amcor announced its support for the launch of the U.S. Plastics Pact’s Roadmap to 2025, an aggressive national strategy for how the U.S. Pact, Amcor and other signatory organizations – known as Activators – will achieve four 2025 targets.

Amcor announced it is the first company to purchase certified circular polyethylene material using ExxonMobil’s Exxtend technology for advanced recycling.

Amcor is a global leader in developing and producing responsible packaging for food, beverage, pharmaceutical, medical, home- and personal-care, and other products. Amcor works with leading companies around the world to protect their products and the people who rely on them, differentiate brands, and improve supply chains through a range of flexible and rigid packaging, specialty cartons, closures, and services. The company is focused on making packaging that is increasingly light-weighted, recyclable and reusable, and made using an increasing amount of recycled content.
mrc.ru