INEOS and German chem park agree steam exchange

INEOS agreed a five-year steam exchange deal between its cracker and petrochemicals production site near Cologne, Germany, and the nearby Dormagen chemical park, which is operated by Currenta, said the company.

Both INEOS Cologne and the Dormagen park have power plants, generating 600 tonnes/hour and 900 tonnes/hour of steam, respectively. The new agreement will double steam exchange volumes and is expected to lead to a reduction in energy costs and natural gas use, officials said.

Ongoing uncertainties over Russian gas supplies and rising energy prices are forcing Germany's chemical and other industries to explore every opportunity to save on gas use. The exchange deal will improve steam supply security for both INEOS Cologne and Dormagen.

INEOS has more steam available at Cologne than it needs during normal production and therefore can transfer the surplus to Dormagen, reducing the need for gas to make steam there. At the same time, during peak chemical production or a power plant outage at Cologne, INEOS can source steam from Dormagen, reducing the need for costly backup systems.

In a next step, INEOS and Currenta will install two new steam transfer points, with completion expected this summer. The chemical industry, with a share of 15% of usage, is Germany’s largest consumer of natural gas.

As per MRC, INEOS Olefins Belgium is the first industrial player to sign an agreement with Fluxys to participate in the feasibility study for the development of an open access hydrogen network in the port of Antwerp, said the company.
The cooperation follows the market consultation initiated by Fluxys last year to match supply and demand for hydrogen in the Belgian industrial clusters. The European Commission considers hydrogen essential for becoming carbon-neutral. When hydrogen is used as a fuel, it is carbon-free and essentially only water vapour is emitted. It is also an important raw material for the chemical industry.
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Trinseo and GMP Group plan to collaborate on a polystyrene (PS) recycling plant in the Netherlands, said the company.

The plant - with a minimum capacity of 25,000 tonnes/year and expected to start up in 2024 - will purify PS waste and deliver high-quality recycled PS pellets via a “ Super Clean recycling process,” they said in a statement. It would be built and operated by GMP.

Details about the recycling process or the project’s expected costs were not disclosed. “The Trinseo–GMP collaboration is yet another important move toward helping our customers reach their sustainability goals and closing the loop for a circular economy, and both companies realise that the most successful way to do this is through synergy along the value chain,” said Nicolas Joly, Trinseo’s senior vice president, Plastics and Feedstocks.

Trinseo and GMP also intend to execute a long-term tolling and off-taking agreement for the plant’s recycled PS pellets. Trinseo is a US-based international chemicals and engineered materials company. GMP Group is a Dutch recycling company. Earlier this year, Trinseo acquired Netherlands-based waste manager and recycler Heathland.

As per MRC, Trinseo will use gasification technology to depolymerize post-consumer polystyrene waste into pure styrene. It’s a first-of-its-kind project on an industrial scale. Trinseo’s plant will process 15 kilotons of recycled polystyrene flakes every year. These will be transformed into high-quality recycled styrene and used for the production of new polystyrene and/or styrene derivatives, including acrylonitrile butadiene styrene (ABS) and styrene acrylonitrile (SAN).

Trinseo is a global materials company and manufacturer of plastics, latex and rubber. Trinseo's technology is used by customers in industries such as home appliances, automotive, building & construction, carpet, consumer electronics, consumer goods, electrical & lighting, medical, packaging, paper & paperboard, rubber goods and tires. Formerly known as Styron, Trinseo completed its renaming process in 1Q 2015. Trinseo had approximately $4.8 billion in net sales in 2021 and has 26 manufacturing sites and one recycling facility around the world and approximately 3,400 employees.
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Braskem is among the 20 most innovative companies in Brazil, according to Innovative Workplaces, a study performed for the first time in Brazil by the magazine MIT Technology Review, said the company.

The publication, affiliated with the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, evaluated the innovation capacity of over 1,000 companies.

The initiative aims to further develop the culture of innovation within Brazilian companies. The organizations were divided into groups, according to type and industry, and were evaluated from four different perspectives: management, marketing, processes, and products. Braskem was recognized in the "Industry" category.

"It's monumental for Braskem to be recognized as an innovative company by an institution as credible and renowned as MIT. This is yet another crowning achievement obtained through the daily hard work of our employees, who are committed to innovation, in order to optimize internal processes, generate value for our clients and, primarily, to create solutions that contribute to sustainable development," states Antonio Queiroz, Vice President of Innovation & Technology at Braskem.

Companies from various industries stand alongside Braskem on the Innovative Workplaces list, which is not intended to be a ranking. These include Ambev, C&A, iFood and the Hospital Israelita Albert Einstein, among others.

As per MRC, Braskem Idesa's new partner in a USD400 MM investment in an ethane import terminal in Mexico will be Advario, part of the storage and logistic infrastructure company Oiltanking, Braskem said on June 14. Construction is scheduled to begin in July and end in 2024. The venture is majority owned by Sao Paulo-based Braskem with Mexico?s Idesa group as minority partner. Braskem and Idesa have been partners since winning in a consortium a tender for a long-term contract to buy ethane from Mexico?s Pemex about 12 years ago. The Puerto Mexico Chemical Terminal, as the ethane import terminal project will be called, will create 2,000 jobs during construction, the company has said.
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CHIMEI completed the world's first carbon neutral transportation of butadiene in August 2021, and joined Singapore's global carbon exchange Climate Impact X (CIX) in April this year, in order to fulfill the commitment "Clean & Green" and respond to the international trend of carbon neutrality, said Polymerupdate.

It is one of the few Taiwanese companies that first joined the international carbon trading market. CHIMEI became the first Taiwanese enterprise to complete carbon credits transaction and offsetting on the CIX in June this year.

CHIMEI purchased 10,000 tons in carbon credits from the CIX’s Project Marketplace. The source of the carbon credits is forest and nature conservation projects in Cambodia and Peru. The carbon credits were certified according to VCS (Verified Carbon Standard), and achieve numerous SDGs of the United Nations, including increasing the employment of local women, clean water, and supporting biodiversity. The carbon credits purchased by CHIMEI will be used to offset carbon emissions from commute and business trips of internal employees in 2021-2025, and a total of 1,416 metric tons of carbon emissions in 2021 was already offset on June 27.

CHIMEI has closely followed low carbon and sustainability issues for a long period of time, and is willing to search for any solution that will reduce GHG emissions from a global perspective. Despite there still being debates in international society over whether or not companies should be allowed to purchase carbon credits to offset their carbon emissions, CHIMEI still hopes to begin taking responsibility for its carbon emissions by voluntarily participating in the carbon credits market. In the future, CHIMEI will more actively cooperate with suppliers, customers, and financial institutions in environmental issues, in order to achieve the sustainability goal of "Clean & Green" and work together with the world towards net zero emissions.

As per MRC, CHIMEI Corporation announced that it is launching a Carbon Capture and Utilization (CCU) project as part of its ongoing development of sustainable materials. The CCU project will capture and convert CO2 from production processes into the main raw material in polycarbonate (PC) products. The new generation of fixed carbon PC products produced in this manner will help bring about circular sustainability. Phase 1 of the project commenced in May this year when CHIMEI partnered with the Industrial Technology Research Institute (ITRI) to leverage its portfolio of sustainable innovative technologies to develop a technology to covert CO2 recovered from CHIMEI’s flue gas into dialkyl carbonate (DRC), the main in-process material used in PC products. The technology is currently expected to be validated by the end of 2023. In the future, CHIMEI will use this precursor technology as the basis for developing the next-generation of fixed carbon PC products.
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MRC) -- The Michigan Economic Development Corporation will grant USD150,000 to Island Plastics, a subsidiary of ACI Plastics, through the Michigan Strategic Fund, as per its press-release.

ACI, a post-industrial plastics recycler, will utilize the funding to install post-consumer LDPE recycling equipment at their Flint, Michigan facility, bringing their total processing capacity to over 11,000 tonnes/year.

“We are excited that ACI Plastics, Inc. has chosen to expand operations in Flint as they continue to grow in the post-consumer plastics recycling industry,” said Tyler Rossmaessler, executive director of Flint & Genesee Economic Alliance.

In total, the capital investment for the expansion is estimated at USD8m.

This follows ACI's announcement earlier this year invest $4m in a new South Carolina facility. The 138,000 square foot facility will process post-industrial plastic into flake and the company hopes to expand with pelletizing operations in the future.

As per MRC, LyondellBasell has developed polymers based on advanced recycled post-consumer materials. These polymers, branded under the name CirculenRevive, are made using an advanced recycling process to convert plastic waste into feedstock, which is used to produce new polymers, using a mass balance approach. With the support of Greiner Packaging, these polymers will be used to make coffee capsules for Nestle’s Nescafe Dolce Gusto. This collaboration aims to help advance a circular economy for plastic.
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