Shell cuts output at German Rhineland refinery due to drought

Oil major Shell said it had to cut output at its German Rhineland refining facility, which makes fuels, heating oil and petrochemicals, citing low Rhine levels that have made the transport of goods via the river more challenging, said Rueters.

"Due to the low Rhine water level we have reduced the capacity of Shell Energy and Chemicals Park Rhineland. The situation regarding supply is challenging but carefully managed," the company said in an e-mailed statement.

The company did not say to what level capacity of the site which can process up to 17 MMt of crude oil a year, or 345,000 bpd, had been cut.

Continued extremely low water levels on the Rhine have inflated freight rates as some ships are touching the riverbed even when empty, said Lars van Wageningen at shipping consultancy Insights Global.

The water level at the Rhine chokepoint of Kaub <WL-KAUB> near Koblenz was at 34 centimeters on Thursday, still near lows last seen in 2018. Vessels need about 1.5 meters to sail fully loaded.

As per MRC, Shell posted record results, with a USD11.5 billion second-quarter profit smashing the mark it set only three months ago, lifted by strong gas trading and a tripling of refining profit. Higher feedstock and utility costs and higher turnaround activities hit Shell’s chemicals earnings in the second quarter. Shell reported an loss attributable to shareholders for the business of USD158m.
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Continental has announced it has entered into an agreement with Inovyn to use Inovyn’s Biovyn, a bio-attributed PVC, to produce the technical and decorative surface materials it supplies to its automotive customers, said Sustainableplastics.

The agreement will help Continental to reduce its carbon footprint and meet customer demand for sustainable bio-based products. Biovyn, which is certified by the Roundtable on Sustainable Biomaterials (RSB), is a ‘drop-in’ product that is made from a 100% renewable raw material, thereby reducing dependency on fossil-based feedstocks. According to Inovyn, the production of Biovyn results in a reduction of greenhouse gas emissions by over 70% compared to conventional PVC production methods.

"Major automotive manufacturers are now demanding more sustainable raw materials such as biobased polymers,” said Dr. Dirk Lei?, who leads Continental's Surface Solutions business area. “With the fully bio-attributed PVC material, we meet these customers' demand, contribute to more sustainability and drive innovation of products at the same time."

Inovyn is the the first commercial producer of bio-attributed PVC, and, said Inna Jeschke, Business Unit Manager Polymers, has received considerable attention from all industries. "We look forward to working together with Continental on innovative solutions for a sustainable future."

We remind, Inovyn has announced the proposed closure of its sulphur chemicals plant at Runcorn Site, and its withdrawal from the UK sulphur chemicals market. The decision follows a detailed management review of the business in light of recent unforeseen events. In October 2020, an unexpected interruption to the third-party power supply to Runcorn Site resulted in the sulphur chemicals plant being taken offline. During a carefully controlled restart, it was identified that a number of critical plant components had suffered significant damage. As a result, to ensure the safety and integrity of the plant it was taken back offline.
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Johor'Honeywell has completed the engineering assessment for Pengerang Energy Complex's (PEC) greenfield integrated condensate splitter and aromatics complex to be built in Johor, Malaysia, Bernama reported, said Apic-online.

The project, being developed by ChemOne Group, will include a 6.5-million-t/y facility with a processing capacity of 150,000 b/d of condensate plus side feed of naphtha, 2.3-million t/y of aromatics products, 3.9-million t/y of energy products and 50,000 t/y of hydrogen.

The facility is expected to be fully operational in 2026. PEC will utilize Honeywell UOP's latest generation LD Parex technology for the production of paraxylene.

"We are delighted to partner with our trusted colleagues at Honeywell UOP for this mega greenfield development," said the report quoting PEC Chief Executive Alwyn Bowden.

"With the petrochemical market set to pick up further, PEC is poised to deliver profitable growth while creating local employment and moving Malaysia further up the value chain in the petrochemical sector.

We remind, Shanghai Honeywell announced that China Tianying (CNTY) has selected the Honeywell UpCycle process technology to use in a new advanced plastics recycling plant to be built in Jiangsu Province, China. The facility, which will be the first commercialized waste plastics recycling facility using the UpCycle process in China, will convert mixed waste plastics into polymer feedstock. A schedule for the project was not given.
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AYRAS and Sequoia announced the completion of one year of operations of TAYRAS’ state-of-the-art re-refining plant located in Osmaneli, Turkey, said Hydrocarbonprocessing.

The plant is capable of processing 60,000 metric tons per year of the waste oil into high quality API Group II+ base oil, meeting the most stringent specifications for sulphur, VI, volatility and even polyaromatic hydrocarbons concentrations. Sequoia designed, specified and supplied all process equipment for the used lubricating oil processing plant based on its vacuum distillation and hydrogeneration technologies. Sequoia has granted exclusive access to its technologies to TAYRAS for Turkey and its neighboring countries.

Mehmet Afsin, Chairman of TAYRAS’s Board said: "It is a great opportunity and challenge to bring a new re-refinery alive. Whilst supply and sales has been organized local, the international technology provided by Sequoia is the heart of the undertaking. Sequoia?s team did a great job by providing the core components on time in high quality. More important is the outstanding ongoing advice and cooperation with our young local employees. I thank Rohit and his staff and our dedicated team led by Ertugrul K?l?c for their enthusiasm and successful diligent work."

Rohit Joshi, Managing Director of Sequoia companies said: “This plant represents an important achievement for our dedicated team and I am grateful to Mehmet Afsin and his colleagues for this wonderful opportunity. I hope we have met their expectations. I also want to thank all of Sequoia employees who worked tirelessly through Covid period to meet our obligations to TAYRAS."

As per MRC, Fitch Ratings has revised its outlooks on Turkey’s major petrochemical producer Petkim and largest Turkish refiner Tupras to negative from stable. The move follows Fitch’s recent sovereign rating action that downgraded Turkey to 'B+', four notches below investment grade, with a negative outlook. Turkey is mired in an economic crisis that sent the official annual inflation figure to 49% at the end of January. The Turkish lira struggling to hold ground against the US dollar. The Turkish currency lost 44% of its value against the dollar in 2021.
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A coalition of plastics companies has sued to block Canada's ban on six single-use plastic products, challenging Ottawa's decision to declare them "toxic" and prohibit them, said Sustainableplastics.

The Responsible Plastic Use Coalition, which includes some of North America's largest resin makers and processors, is asking a federal court to quash the ban, which was announced June 20, and order the government to convene a scientific panel to review the decision. "There is no credible evidence that any of the [plastics] are 'toxic,'" RPUC said in its lawsuit. "The ban was made despite a paucity of facts and evidentiary support about the nature and extent of the environmental contamination and harm arising from the SUPs single-use plastics."

But Steven Guilbeault, the minister of Environment and Climate Change Canada, said in an Aug. statement that he expects the government to prevail in the lawsuit, which is testing the ministry's 2021 decision to label plastics manufactured products "toxic" so they could be regulated under the Canadian Environmental Protection Act.

"While a handful of plastic companies try to stop our ban on harmful single-use plastics, we are going to keep fighting for the clean, healthy environment Canadians deserve," Guilbeault said. "We're going to stick to the facts, which show very clearly that plastic pollution is harming our environment and we need to act." The Canadian ban applies to single-use retail bags, cutlery, foodservice ware that's made from "problematic" or hard-to-recycle materials, ring carriers, stir sticks and straws.

Prohibitions on manufacturing and importing start to phase-in in December, with exports banned in 2025. Guilbeault called on Canada's plastics industry to support government plans for net-zero waste, including requiring plastic products to have at least 50 percent recycled content by 2030, limiting the "chasing arrows" symbol to products that Canadian recycling plants can "actually process" and creating a registry that would collect life cycle data on plastics.

In his statement, he also called for support for a legally binding global treaty on plastic pollution. Industry citesconflicts. But RPUC, which includes Nova Chemicals Corp., Berry Global Group Inc., LyondellBasell Industries and Dow Inc., said the government hasn't proven that plastic products are toxic under CEPA.

In a lawsuit filed July 15, it suggested the bar to regulation of plastic products under CEPA should be similar to that for drugs or guns. "The substance must pose a threat or danger, in the same way that Parliament regulates other threats or dangers to the public, peace, order, health and security such as the regulation of narcotics and firearms pursuant to its criminal law power," RPUC said.

It argued the ban could allow the same plastic container to be sold in a hardware store to package nails but be banned from being sold in a grocery store to hold food. "The same would not be true for other regulated manufactured items," RPUC said. "A firearm would not be safe for use in a restaurant, but unsafe in a hardware store."

The plastics companies, which also filed a related lawsuit last year challenging the "toxic" CEPA listing broadly, said the government must conduct a life cycle assessment of the environmental impact of alternatives to plastic. "Such an assessment would include an investigation of the impacts of manufacture, raw materials, treating or preventing effluent, transportation of substitute products, and new sources of alternatives to the SUPs that are to be banned," the plastics companies said.

"The [plastic companies] do not dispute that reducing plastic pollution is desirable, but doing so should not come at the cost of increased environmental damage," RPUC said. Industry groups have previously argued that the government should focus on helping to develop recycling technologies and building end markets for recycled plastic, and said they worried a "toxic" listing would scare off investment in the country.

As per MRC, Brenntag, the global market leader in chemicals and ingredients distribution, has become the exclusive distributor of Nouryon’s specialty polymers in the United State and Canada. As the sole distributor of Nouryon’s proprietary LumaTreat™ polymers, Brenntag can offer a portfolio including the patented LumaTreat™ smart-tagged polymers, Aquatreat™, Versaflex™, and Versa™ polymers which offer scale control and dispersancy.
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