Chevron says world largest carbon capture project has 'a ways to go' to meet goals

Chevron says world largest carbon capture project has 'a ways to go' to meet goals

Chevron Corp's Gorgon carbon capture and storage (CCS) project in Australia is working at only half its capacity nearly three years after starting up and the company has no timeframe for delivering on targets it has so far failed to meet, said Hydrocarbonprocessing.

The world's largest CCS project, which started up three years late, is being closely watched by the gas industry globally as carbon capture and storage is seen as essential for producers to meet net zero emissions targets by 2050.

Gorgon CCS had originally been slated to be fully operational by last year when the project faced its first five-year rolling assessment. Instead, it was forced to buy carbon credits for falling short of goals for burying emissions from the Gorgon LNG plant. The project was designed to bury 4 MMtons of CO2 annually but only managed 2.1 MMtons last year.

Judd said the company would continue to work with the Western Australian government to offer offsets to make up for any shortfall assessed each year. He did not say how much Chevron had spent on the 5 MM GHG offsets surrendered on behalf of the Gorgon partners, which include fellow majors Exxon Mobil Corp and Shell.

Australian Carbon Credit Units soared to a high of A$57 a ton in January when Chevron was buying offsets. At those prices, the offsets would cost more than AD250 MM but not all the offsets were bought on the Australian market.

Despite the challenges faced by the AD3 B (USD2 B) project off the coast of Western Australia, Chevron is looking for other CCS opportunities in Australia and elsewhere. In Southeast Asia alone BP plc, Indonesia's Pertamina and Malaysia's Petronas are working on CCS plans.

As per MRC, Chevron and ExxonMobil have signed separate agreements with state energy company PT Pertamina to explore lower carbon business opportunities in Indonesia. Chevron signed an MoU through its subsidiary, Chevron New Ventures Pte. Ltd, and is looking at potential businesses in new geothermal technology, carbon offsets through nature-based solutions, carbon capture, utilization, and storage (CCUS), Pertamina said.

We remind that Chevron Phillips Chemical, a joint venture of Phillips 66 and Chevron, will make a final investment decision on a new cracker in far southeast Texas in 2022, followed by an FID in 2023 on an USD8 billion joint venture petrochemical complex along the US Gulf Coast in 2023.
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Saudi Arabia crude oil exports fall in March

Saudi Arabia crude oil exports fall in March

Saudi Arabia's crude oil exports in March fell to 7.235 MMbpd, said Hydrocarbonprocessing.

Crude oil exports in March fell about 1% from about 7.307 MMbpd reported for February. Meanwhile, the world's largest oil exporter's March crude production rose to its highest level in about two years at 10.300 million bpd from 10.225 MMbpd in the previous month.

Saudi Arabia is on track to lift oil production capacity by more than 1 million bpd to over 13 MMbpd by the end of 2026 or start of 2027, the energy minister said on Monday. Saudi Arabia's domestic crude refinery throughput rose 0.267 MMbpd to 2.773 MMbpd in March while direct crude burn rose 44,000 bpd to 335,000 bpd.

The country posted a budget surplus of USD15.33 B in the first three months of 2022, the finance ministry said, bolstered by a 58% jump in oil revenue as prices surged. Monthly export figures are provided by Riyadh and other members of the Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries to the Joint Organizations Data Initiative, which published them on its website.

As per MRC, Ukraine has signed contracts to import 300,000 tons of diesel and 120,000 tons of petrol to cover consumption in May as Russia targets Ukrainian fuel infrastructure. Russia has destroyed 27 fuel depots and the Kremenchuk oil refinery in central Ukraine since it launched its Feb. 24 invasion, the government official said at a government meeting.

We remind, Russian fuel oil arrivals in the UAE oil hub of Fujairah are set to jump sharply to about 2.5 MM barrels this month, data shows, in a sign that flows of Russian oil and refined products are shifting away from Europe.
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Shenghong achieved on-spec products from new refinery

Shenghong achieved on-spec products from new refinery

Shenghong Refining and Chemical has achieved on-spec products from its new 16m tonne/year refinery at Lianyungang in Jiangsu province, indicating successful start-up of the facility, said the company.

Distillate products, including gasoline, diesel, kerosene and wax oil, have all passed quality test and meet standard requirements. The refinery was commissioned in early May.

The project allows Shenghong to realise integration from upstream refining to downstream paraxylene/ethylene glycol, purified terephthalic acid (PTA), polyester and fibre, it said.

As MRC informed before, initially Shenghong Petrochemical planned to start test runs at its 320,000-bpd crude unit in August or September, 2021.

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.
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Encina aims to produce BTX, propylene from plastic waste in US

Encina aims to produce BTX, propylene from plastic waste in US

US-based plastics recycling start-up Encina plans to produce benzene, toluene and mixed xylenes (BTX) as well as propylene from its planned new USD1.1bn project in Point Township, Pennsylvania, US, said the company.

The Point Township Circular Manufacturing Facility would use Encina’s proprietary fluidized catalytic system and consume 450,000 tonnes/year of mixed waste plastics, a company spokesperson confirmed. Construction is expected to begin in the autumn of 2022, and the facility is expected to be fully operational by the autumn of 2024.

The USD1.1bn in funding is being managed through Encina’s investment banker Morgan Stanley, where it expects a combination of equity from institutional investors and project debt through conventional project lending, according to the spokesperson. Encina would source post-consumer plastic waste as well as scrap plastics from other sources.

Encina’s catalytic reforming of the plastic waste feedstock forms a stream of aromatics which then can be extracted, and delivered to customers in their improved form of high-quality ASTM grade circular chemicals, according to the company.

In February, Encina announced that Technip Energies would design the commercial unit for its process. In January, it announced that Sulzer Chemtech will provide the technology to recover high-purity circular aromatics from its catalytic conversion platform. The primary output would be BTX which can be used by customers to meet their circularity goals in sectors such as consumer products, health care, pharmaceuticals and construction materials. The company would not specify the output capacity.

In February 2021, Encina announced the signing of a non-binding term sheet with Flint Hills Resources to produce renewable chemicals and fuels from waste plastic. The term sheet noted the parties may enter into a definitive agreement that includes building a waste plastic to renewable chemicals and fuels plant in Corpus Christi, Texas.

In December 2020, Braskem America announced its intent to develop a long-term relationship with Encina to enabling the production of recycled polypropylene (PP).
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Industrial output up 4% in first four months in China

Industrial output up 4% in first four months in China

China reported a drop in retail sales and industrial production in April — far worse than analysts had expected, said Reuters.

Retail sales fell by 11.1% in April from a year ago, more than the 6.1% decline predicted in a Reuters poll. Industrial production dropped by 2.9% in April from a year ago, in contrast with expectations for a slight increase of 0.4%. The output of mining and utilities businesses grew.

But manufacturing fell by 4.6%, mostly dragged down by a slump in the auto sector and equipment manufacturing, said Statistics Bureau Spokesperson Fu Linghui. In addition to Covid, he said industrial production faces pressure from insufficient market demand, rising costs and other factors.

Last month, the persistent spread of Covid and resulting stay-home orders — primarily in Shanghai — forced factories to close or operate at limited capacity.

The “increasingly grim and complex international environment and greater shock of [the] Covid-19 pandemic at home obviously exceeded expectation, new downward pressure on the economy continued to grow,” the statistics bureau said in a statement. The bureau said the impact of Covid is temporary and that the economy “is expected to stabilize and recover."

As per MRC, oil prices fell on Monday as concerns over weak economic growth in China, the world's top oil importer, overshadowed fears supply might be crimped by a potential European Union ban on Russian crude. Brent crude futures were down USD3.73, or 3.4%, to $103.41 a barrel at 1403 GMT, while U.S. WTI crude futures fell USD3.98, or 3.8%, to USD100.71 a barrel. Markets in Japan, Britain, India and across Southeast Asia were closed for public holidays on Monday. China released data showing factory activity in the world's second-largest economy contracted for a second month to its lowest since February 2020 because of COVID lockdowns.

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.
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