Power interruption prompts flaring at Chevron Phillips Baytown plant

Power interruption prompts flaring at Chevron Phillips Baytown plant

Chevron Phillips was utilizing the safety flare system at its Baytown, Texas, chemical plant following a power interruption, according to a source familiar with plant operations, said Reuters.

Thick black smoke was seen throughout the morning at the plant, located on the east side of the Houston metro area, according to a Reuters witness.

The smoke had started to dissipate by around noon local time, the witness said. The company did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

Safety flares are used when a refinery or chemical plant experiences an upset or outage to burn off hydrocarbons that cannot be processed normally.

As per MRC, QatarEnergy and Chevron Phillips Chemical Company (CPChem) have awarded the early site works contract for the Ras Laffan Petrochemical Project (RLPP) to Consolidated Contractors Company (CCC). The contract award marks the commencement of execution of the RLPP. CCC has secured a lump-sum contract to prepare the site for the new facility within Ras Laffan Industrial City. Early works on the project will begin in June, at the conclusion of which the EPC contract for the project is expected to be awarded.
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Binh Son refinery Q2 net profit soars to USD424 mln

Binh Son refinery Q2 net profit soars to USD424 mln

Vietnam's Binh Son Refining and Petrochemical recorded net profit of USD424 mln in the second quarter, up by nearly six times from a year earlier, said Reuters.

Binh Son, which owns a 130,000-bpd refinery in central Vietnam, said in a statement the recent surge in domestic fuel prices was behind its profit jump. It also said it had been operating above capacity this year to meet domestic fuel demand amid a an output cut in Vietnam's other refinery.

As per MRC, Vietnam's Binh Son Refining and Petrochemical will this year roll out a USD1.2 B plan to upgrade and expand its Dung Quat refinery, raising its processing capacity to 7.6 MMt of crude oil a year from 6.5 MMt. The upgrade and expansion work is scheduled to be completed by the end of 2025, the company said in a statement, adding that 60% of the funds needed for the plan will come from loans. The refinery in Vietnam's central province of Quang Ngai plans to raise the proportion of imported crude oil it processes to 35%-46% this year from 21.4% last year, it said. It targets output 6.5 MMt this year, unchanged from last year.

We remind that NSRP resumed operations at its new polypropylene (PP) plant in Vietnam on 17 October, 2021, after an unscheduled maintenance. The 400,000 mt year of PP plant was unexpectedly shut on 7 October, 2021, due to a technical glitch.

According to MRC's ScanPlast report, 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, whereas shipments of PP random copolymers decreased significantly.

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U.S. to sell additional 20 million barrels of oil from strategic reserve

U.S. to sell additional 20 million barrels of oil from strategic reserve

The Biden administration said it will sell an additional 20 MM barrels of oil from the Strategic Petroleum Reserve as part of a previous plan to tap the facility to calm oil prices boosted by Russia’s invasion of Ukraine and as demand recovers from the pandemic, said Reuters.

The administration said in late March it would release a record 1 MM barrels of per day of oil for six months from the SPR, held in hollowed-out salt caverns on the coasts of Louisiana and Texas. The United States has already sold 125 MM barrels from the reserve with nearly 70 MM barrels already delivered to purchasers, a senior administration official told reporters.

The SPR releases have been a "supply lifeline" to oil and refining companies as the industry continues to get oil production back online after declines during the peak of the COVID-19 pandemic, the official said. The U.S. Energy Information Administration, the statistics arm of the Energy Department, said this month that U.S. oil output will rise to more than 11.9 MMbpd in 2022 and to nearly 12.8 MMbpd in 2023, from about 11.2 MMbpd in 2021. That compares with a record near 12.3 million bpd in 2019.

The United States will take bids in autumn to begin the process of buying back 60 million barrels of crude for reserve, a first step in replenishing the stockpile after the 180 MM barrel release, the Department of Energy said in May. The department will soon propose a rule to help put oil back into the SPR, where levels have sunk to 475.5 MM barrels, the lowest since June 1985, by allowing it to enter forward contracts to purchase oil in future years at fixed, preset prices.

"What it means in practice is that producers would have more certainty about future demand for their product, and that would encourage investment in production today," a senior U.S. official told reporters. Oil purchases to replenish the SPR will not be competing with demand for oil in the near term as they will likely take place after fiscal year 2023, an official told reporters.

As per MRC, the recovery in Russian oil production has continued this month as higher domestic demand offset a slight drop in exports to key markets. The nation’s producers pumped 10.78 million barrels a day on average from July 1 to 17, according to data from the Energy Ministry’s CDU-TEK unit that was seen by Bloomberg. That’s 0.6% above the June level, according to calculations based on the data, indicating that the pace of the country’s output recovery has slowed.
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Cosmo First appoints Kulbhushan Malik as global business head of its films business

Cosmo First appoints Kulbhushan Malik as global business head of its films business

Cosmo First Limited, a four-decade-old global business organisation with entities-- Cosmo Films, Cosmo Speciality Chemicals, Zigly, and Cosmo Foundation, today announced the elevation of Mr. Kulbhushan Malik as the Business Head for their Films Business globally, as per Financialexpress.

He was earlier working as Head of Operations for International Businesses. A seasoned business leader with over 24 years of experience, Kulbhushan comes to Cosmo Films with diverse experience in General Management roles with P&L responsibilities, business development and finance roles with a demonstrated record of working in the manufacturing Industry.

On the announcement, Mr. Pankaj Poddar, Group CEO, Cosmo First Limited said, “Kulbhushan has not only been an integral part of Cosmo Films growth but has helped navigate it via his leadership, strategy, and business acumen. I am confident that with Kulbhushan in-charge, Cosmo First will continue to achieve its strategic business goals."

Commenting on his new role, Mr. Kulbhushan Malik, Global Business Head, Cosmo Films said, “Cosmo has been at the forefront of innovation and manufacturing capabilities in the packaging industry. I look forward to work with the team and leveraging their capabilities to seek challenges and continue to deliver upon our commitment to quality, trust, and innovation with our consumer-centric approach."

As per MRC, Cosmo Films Ltd, a global leader in Films for packaging, labelling, lamination and synthetic paper and an emerging player in Specialty Chemicals, Polymers & Pet Care today announced its new brand identity, Cosmo First Limited. The strategic decision comes considering the company's business activities have expanded beyond films into specialty chemicals (master-batches, coatings, and textile chemicals) and D2C Pet care.

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Mitsubishi Chemical Group Invested in Eridan

Mitsubishi Chemical Group Invested in Eridan
The Mitsubishi Chemical Group (MCG) hereby announces that it has invested in Eridan Communications, a company developing power transceivers for the 5G communications environment, through its CVC subsidiary Diamond Edge Ventures, Inc., said the company.

Eridan and its next-generation radio-frequency (RF) transceiver technology enable improved connectivity for more people, using less energy, less expensive infrastructure, and less spectrum, addressing the main obstacle for the shift from 4G to 5G. In its initial stages of deployment, Eridan’s MIRACLE RF Front End Module will be utilized by telecom equipment manufacturers building small cells and Massive MIMO systems for urban and suburban locations.

In line with its management policy of "Forging the future," MCG has positioned electronics as one of its most important strategic fields and aim to develop its business in semiconductor materials and high-speed telecommunications-related materials. Leveraging open innovation, MCG will co-create new digital-related solutions by combining the Group's materials technology, such as GaN substrates, with Eridan's module design technology.

This activity is part of our corporate venture activities, and MCG will continue to promote collaboration with startup companies to promote commercialization.

As MRC reported earlier, in February 2022, MCC and its subsidiary, Mitsubishi Chemical Methacrylates (MCM announced plans to design and build a pilot plant to further validate the technology. Three possible pathways to creating sustainable MMA, including the molecular recycling of acrylic resin; substituting conventional materials with drop-in plant-derived raw materials in the existing MMA monomer manufacturing process; and the direct production of MMA monomers from plant-derived raw materials by fermentation were explored. The promising results using the drop-in route have now led to the decision to commence with the design process for a new pilot plant using this technology.

The Japanese integrated chemical company Mitsubishi Chemical was established on October 1, 1990 as a result of the merger of Mitsubishi Kasei and Mitsubishi Petrochemical Co. Due to the wide scope of its activities, it is one of the ten leading chemical companies in the world.
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