Ravago acquires Aurora Manufacturing and Venture Polymers

MOSCOW (MRC) -- Belgian plastics firm Ravago has acquired UK recyclers Venture Polymers and Aurora Manufacturing for an undisclosed sum, said the company.

Cheshire-based Venture and Lancashire-based Aurora produce reprocessed PP and HDPE, with a joint 20,000 tonne capacity. Ravago said it intends to grow its operations further in the UK.

Manuel Gayo, Ravago Manufacturing Europe business director, said: “This is a key step in Ravago’s growth strategy in post-consumer recycling based compounds as we continue to support our customers with solutions to meet the ever-increasing demand for post-consumer recycled plastics."

Alex Cook, Aurora Manufacturing managing director, said: “Following two decades of work within the UK plastics recycling industry we are pleased to announce the acquisition of our businesses into the Ravago group.

As per MRC, Neste and Ravago aim to establish a joint venture to build an industrial facility for chemical recycling in North Sea Port in Vlissingen, the Netherlands. The facility is intended to be the starting point of joint global chemical recycling (often also called “advanced recycling”) activities, built upon the advancement of the thermochemical liquefaction technology of US-based Alterra Energy, an innovative chemical recycling technology company.

As MRC reported earlier, Ravago Group has carried out routine maintenance at its expandable polystyrene (EPS) plant in Schkopau, Germany. Thus, the turnaround at this plant with a capacity of 70,000/tonnes of EPS per year began on April 20, 2021, and was completed on April 28. Thus, the maintenance works at this plant lasted for one week.

Ravago represents more than 6.6 million metric tons of annual polymer sales, serving more than 50,000 active customers through more than 325 locations across more than 55 countries worldwide. Ravago's production capability consists of more than 45 manufacturing facilities, 19 of which are recycling and compounding plants in North America, Europe, Asia and Africa with a combined annual capacity of more than 775,000 metric tons; 13 of which are production plants in Europe that offer finished product solutions for the building sector; and seven of which are chemicals plants and 6 are application laboratories for its chemicals business.
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MOSCOW (MRC) -- As part of the country’s intention to scale up clean energy production, industry body India Hydrogen Alliance (IH2A) is planning to create 25 National Green Hydrogen Projects and five national hydrogen hubs by 2025, said Gasworld.

Revealed by IH2A yesterday, 30th June, the organisation is currently seeking US$360m in public finance support over the next three years, in addition to its intent to create a National Hydrogen Development Corporation and a public-private hydrogen taskforce.

Dubbed the 25/25 National Green Hydrogen Hub Development Plan (25/25), the initiative was submitted by IH21 to NITI Aayoh and the Ministry of New and Renewable Energy, Government of India. The 25 scalable green hydrogen projects will see 150 megawatts (MW) of installed electrolyser capacity, and 12 industrial de-carbonisation projects across various hard to abate industries such as chemicals, steel, and heavy-duty transport.

The five hydrogen hubs will be installed across five different cities: Gujarat, Karnataka, Maharashtra, Kerala, and Andhra Pradesh.

As per MRC, TotalEnergies has entered into an agreement with Adani Enterprises Limited (AEL) to acquire a 25% interest in Adani New Industries Ltd. (ANIL). ANIL will be the exclusive platform of AEL and TotalEnergies for the production and commercialisation of green hydrogen in India. ANIL will target a production of 1 million t of green hydrogen per year (Mtpa) by 2030, underpinned by around 30 GW of new renewable power generation capacity, as its first milestone.
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MOSCOW (MRC) -- Production at Venezuela's largest refinery, which can process about 645,000 barrels of oil per day (bpd), was halted late on Saturday by an electrical fault that caused a blackout, according to five people familiar with the matter, said Hydrocarbonprocessing.

Amuay is the only refinery producing gasoline at the Paraguana Refinery Center (CRP) following a halt in some operations at the neighboring Cardon refinery while a reformer fault is fixed.
"Blackout in the Amuay refinery. An electrical problem. Total blackout. In Amuay, the distilling and catalytic plants might be affected, which is currently producing about 80% of the country's gasoline," one of the sources said, speaking on condition of anonymity.

State-owned oil company PDVSA did not immediately respond to requests for comment. The issues arose from a failure in the power plant that supplies power to both refineries but affects Amuay the most, one of the sources said. While electricity had been restored the halt in processing has not been fixed, the source added.

PDVSA will work to restore electricity to Amuay on Sunday, two of the sources added. The CRP is located on Venezuela's northwest coast and is operating far below its capacity of processing 955,000 bpd. Venezuela's network of refineries has a production capacity of 1.3 MMbpd.

People from nearby communities that depend on electricity generated by the CRP took to social media to report power cuts. Venezuela faces intermittent gasoline shortages following years of disinvestment and poor maintenance across the state refining network, as well as electrical failures and limits on fuel imports due to U.S. sanctions seeking to pressure President Nicolas Maduro to leave office.

As per MRC, Iran and Venezuela, oil producers grappling with crippling U.S. sanctions, signed a 20-year cooperation plan in Tehran, with the Islamic Republic's supreme leader saying the allies would continue to resist pressure from Washington. The signing ceremony, carried by Iranian state TV, was overseen by Iranian President Ebrahim Raisi and his Venezuelan counterpart Nicolas Maduro and took place at the Saadabad Palace in north Tehran. The plan includes cooperation in the fields of oil, petrochemicals, defence, agriculture, tourism, and culture. It also includes repair of Venezuelan refineries and the export of technical and engineering services.
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MOSCOW (MRC) -- India will only withdraw its windfall tax introduced last week for oil producers and refiners if global prices of crude fall as much as USD40 a barrel from present levels, said Hydrocarbonprocessing, citing Revenue Secretary Tarun Bajaj.

The tax on firms that have increased product exports to gain from higher overseas margins took effect on July 1, as the government moves to boost domestic supply and revenue. The taxes, and some accompanying export curbs, will hit the earnings of companies such as Reliance Industries, Nayara Energy, which is partly owned by Russia's Rosneft , the Oil and Natural Gas Corp, Oil India Ltd and Vedanta Ltd.

"The taxation would be reviewed every 15 days," Bajaj said, adding that it would depend on international crude prices. "If crude prices fall, then windfall gains will cease and windfall taxes would also be removed."

The government believes such windfall gains will cease once prices fall $40 from existing levels, Bajaj said.

Brent crude futures slipped on Monday to about USD111.27 a barrel, as fears of a global recession weighed on the market even as supply remains tight amid lower OPEC output, unrest in Libya and sanctions on Russia.

U.S. West Texas Intermediate crude futures were at USD108.09 a barrel. Bajaj did not provide any estimate of the revenue increase for the government from its windfall tax move.

As per MRC, TotalEnergies has entered into an agreement with Adani Enterprises Limited (AEL) to acquire a 25% interest in Adani New Industries Ltd. (ANIL). ANIL will be the exclusive platform of AEL and TotalEnergies for the production and commercialisation of green hydrogen in India. ANIL will target a production of 1 million t of green hydrogen per year (Mtpa) by 2030, underpinned by around 30 GW of new renewable power generation capacity, as its first milestone.
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MOSCOW (MRC) -- BASF and MAN Energy Solutions have entered into a strategic partnership to pursue the construction of an industrial-scale heat pump at the BASF site in Ludwigshafen, said Chemeurope.

This project is intended to make an important contribution to reducing greenhouse gas emissions, establishing the use of low-CO2 technologies in chemical production and reducing the site’s natural gas consumption. As a first step, the project partners are conducting a feasibility study that is expected to be completed by the end of 2022.

The planned large-scale heat pump will enable production of steam using electricity from renewable energy, tapping waste heat from the cooling water system at BASF as a source of thermal energy. The residual heat in the water will be processed using compression to produce steam that will be fed into the site’s steam network. By integrating the planned heat pump into the site’s production infrastructure, up to 150 metric tons of steam can be produced per hour, equivalent to a thermal output of 120 megawatts. The project could reduce CO2 emissions at the site by up to 390,000 metric tons per year. At the same time, it would make the cooling water system more efficient and less dependent on climate and weather conditions.

Steam is the most important source of energy in the chemical industry. In Ludwigshafen, BASF requires around 20 million metric tons of steam per year. The plants at the site use much of this as process steam in production, for example, to dry products, heat up reactors or for distilling. Around half of the steam required at the Ludwigshafen site is already produced by recovering heat from production facilities using a low-CO2 process. The remaining steam demand, approximately 50 percent, is met by gas and steam power plants, which emit CO2 during generation.

With this project, the two partners want to gain experience in the integration and operation of industrial-scale heat pumps and pave the way for the standardization and deployment of the technology at other sites. The feasibility study’s findings with regard to the economic viability, efficiency and competitiveness of the technology will form the basis for the subsequent decision-making process for the construction of the heat pump.

BASF has set itself the goal of achieving net zero CO2 emissions by 2050. In addition to the use of renewable energies and increasing energy efficiency in production, new technologies such as the electrification of steam production will contribute to meeting this target. Scaling up such climate-friendly processes to an industrial level will decisively influence the transformation to low-CO2 chemical production.

MAN Energy Solutions has put technical solutions to lower greenhouse gas emissions from industry, energy production and shipping at the heart of its future strategy. In addition to technologies to avoid harmful emissions, the company focuses in particular on the reduction or compensation of unavoidable residual emissions from industry.

As per MRC, BASF and Malaysia's Petronas Chemicals Group Bhd announced that they will build a major new production plant for 2-Ethylhexanoic Acid (2-EHAcid). The new facility will be located at the site of their existing joint venture, BASF Petronas Chemicals, in Kuantan, Malaysia. Construction is anticipated to start in the second quarter of 2015. Financial details of the investment were not disclosed.

As per MRC, BASF completed a double-digit million euro investment to increase production capacity for Tinopal CBS optical brighteners at its Monthey site. Following phase one of the stepwise capacity increase in 2021, the recent completion of the investment program has now brought significantly increased capacity on stream to meet growing global customer demand.

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.
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