Valero CEO says U.S. energy secretary told shuttered refineries won't restart

Valero Chief Executive Joe Gorder said this week U.S. Energy Secretary Jennifer Granholm was told at a recent White House meeting with energy executives that refineries shuttered in the last few years won't return production, said Rueters.

"The one interesting thing that came out of it, too, was there was consideration for the ability to restart refining capacity that had been shut down," Gorder said. "And I think the general sentiment was that wasn't going to happen."

We remind, Oil refiner Valero Energy said it expects the Biden administration to continue releasing oil from the U.S. emergency reserve through year-end and will continue buying barrels. President Joe Biden last week announced a plan to release 15 million barrels from the Strategic Petroleum Reserve (SPR) - part of a record 180 million-barrel release that began in May. The United States is ready to tap reserves again next year if needed, he said.

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Malaysian state energy firm Petronas said a fire and explosion occurred on Thursday at the Pengerang refinery-petrochemical complex, a joint venture it operates with Saudi Aramco in the southern Malaysian state of Johor, said Straitstimes.

No casualties were reported and the incident poses no immediate threat to the surrounding communities, Petronas said in a statement.

The fire occurred at one of the interconnecting pipes at the Pengerang Integrated Complex at 1540 local time and was completely extinguished in about an hour, Petronas said.

The 300,000 barrel-per-day complex has seen such accidents before.

In March 2020, five people were killed in a fire at the complex, forcing it to close for more than two years. It restarted in May, MRC reported.

Pengerang in located in south-east Johor, across from Pulau Tekong.
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Linde’s sales and earnings rose year on year in the third quarter on the back of higher selling prices and sales volumes, said the company.

The margin for earnings before interest, taxes, depreciation, and amortisation (EBITDA), a key measure of a company’s profitability, fell slightly to 31.1%, down from 33.4% in the third quarter of 2021.

Linde’s sales in the Americas stood at USD3.69bn for the third quarter, up 20% year on year. In Asia Pacific, sales stood at USD1.6bn, up 6% year on year, while in Europe, the Middle East, and Africa (EMEA) sales came in at USD2,13bn, up 11%.

Linde’s CEO, Sanjiv Lamba, said: “Linde employees delivered another strong quarter of financial results with EPS [earnings per share] increasing 14% despite 7% currency headwinds.

“Irrespective of the macro-economic uncertainty, I have confidence in our business model and high-performance culture to continue creating shareholder value for years to come.”

We remind, Linde plc announced its Board of Directors has declared a quarterly dividend of USD1.17/share. The dividend is payable on 16 Dec 2022 to shareholders of record on 2 Dec 2022. Despite the economic slowdown underway, Linde remains optimistic for Q4. The company said it expected net income and EPS to be between 1-5% higher than in the fourth quarter of 2021.

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Rohm and OQ Chemicals officially broke ground on their new world-scale methyl methacrylate (MMA) plant in Bay City, Texas, the chemical producers announced.

The plant will be the first to employ Rohm's LiMA ("Leading in Methacrylates") technology on a large industrial scale, which is its latest proprietary production technology.

It will have a capacity of 250,000 tonnes/year once completed in early 2024, which will enable Rohm to serve increasing demand for MMA and support the reliability of its supply chain towards its customers globally.

OQ Chemicals has invested significantly in additional propionic aldehyde capacity and local infrastructure in order to supply the plant with key raw materials and provide site services and utilities to Rohm.

Propionic aldehyde is an intermediate material used in applications in pharmaceuticals, plastics, insecticides and fragrances production.

Nearly all MMA is polymerised to make homopolymers and copolymers, the largest application being the casting, moulding or extrusion of polymethyl methacrylate (PMMA) or modified polymers.

In February 2021, Rohm and OQ signed a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) to evaluate the construction of a new production plant for methyl methacrylate (MMA) on the U.S. Gulf Coast. The proposed facility has a design capacity of 250,000 tons of MMA annually. It will utilize Rohm’s proprietary ethylene-based LiMA technology. Under the MoU terms, OQ Chemicals will integrate the plant into its existing site and provide raw materials, utilities, and site services to Rohm.
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Neste and Rolls-Royce have agreed to build a strategic partnership on accelerating the use of renewable diesel as a lower-emission solution for diesel engines, said Hydrocarbonprocessing.

Both parties share a common vision of renewable fuels playing a key role in reducing greenhouse gas emissions in off-highway applications, such as construction and power generation.

The key focus in the collaboration will be on promoting the use of more sustainable fuels in applications based on the existing internal combustion engine technology, accelerating the transition from fossil fuels to renewable fuels, and increasing knowledge sharing on renewable diesel and the benefits it provides to its users.

Under the mtu brand, Rolls-Royce sells high-speed engines and propulsion systems for ships, power generation, heavy land and rail vehicles, military vehicles, and the oil and gas industry, as well as diesel and gas systems and battery containers for safety-critical applications, continuous power generation, combined heat and power, and microgrids.

“Through our 'Net Zero at Power Systems' sustainability program, we have committed to realigning our mtu product portfolio so that by 2030, sustainable fuels and new mtu technologies will reduce our greenhouse gas emissions by 35 percent compared to 2019. This near-term target plays an important role in the Rolls-Royce Group’s Net Zero ambition by 2050 at the latest. Our collaboration with Neste, the world's leading producer of renewable diesel, will help us achieve our goals and those of our customers”, says Tobias Ostermaier, President Stationary Power Solutions from the Rolls-Royce business unit Power Systems.

“With Neste MY Renewable Diesel the GHG emissions can be reduced by as much as 75-95%* when emissions over the fuel's life cycle are compared with fossil diesel. Companies can reduce their climate emissions significantly in an instant by just changing the fuel,'' says Lars Peter Lindfors, Senior Vice President Innovations at Neste.

Neste MY Renewable Diesel is produced from 100% renewable raw materials. It is a drop-in fuel, not requiring any modifications to the existing vehicles, energy systems or fuel distribution infrastructures.

We remind, Bugaboo, DSM Engineering Materials, Fibrant and Neste announce that their cross-value chain partnership has successfully enabled the launch of an entire Bugaboo stroller portfolio made with bio-based materials. Specifically, the majority of the strollers’ plastic parts are made using DSM Engineering Materials’ Akulon® 100% bio-based B-MB polyamide 6 (PA6), which in turn is made using bio-based feedstock from both Fibrant and Neste. DSM Engineering Materials uses a mass-balancing approach with renewable waste and residue raw material to enable a ~75% PA6 carbon footprint reduction compared to conventional PA6 and up to 24% of the entire stroller.
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