Lukoil urged to keep Sicilian refinery running as talks drag on

Italy is urging Lukoil to keep supporting its refinery in Sicily until the government brokers a sale, two sources close to the matter told Reuters on Thursday, as looming European Union sanctions against Moscow threaten the plant's survival, said Reuters.

A European embargo on seaborne Russian oil comes into effect on Dec. 5 and the Italian government pledged to rescue the ISAB plant, which accounts for a fifth of Italy's refining capacity and employs about 1,000 workers.

The plant has had to rely solely on Russian oil provided by Lukoil after its creditor banks halted financing and stopped providing guarantees needed to buy oil from alternative suppliers.

As talks to sell the plant to a non-Russian buyer drag on, sources have said Rome is pushing on Lukoil's Litasco, which owns the refinery, to provide oil and financing beyond the December deadline.

Reuters reported last month that Litasco had moved part of it operations to Dubai in an effort to elude sanctions that will soon prevent European and Swiss entities from buying Russian seaborne crude oil.

A third source said the ISAB refinery is not planning to halt operations on Dec. 5, though time is running out. The plant refines about 1 million tonnes of crude a month and would not be able to carry on for long without fresh oil supplies.

State-backed financing to support the refinery is still an option being discussed, but banks remain reluctant to deal with a Russian entity, one of the sources said, despite Lukoil and Litasco not being subject to European sanctions.

A meeting involving refinery and government representatives will take place in Rome on Friday, with unions warning a shutdown of the plant would have devastating effects on one of Italy's most depressed regions.

"We will ensure that the plant remains operational," Industry Minister Adolfo Urso said on Thursday without detailing the government's plans. Litasco this month rejected a preliminary bid from U.S. fund Crossbridge.

Urso said the government would be ready to use its special powers to block a foreign takeover of the refinery to protect national interests.

We remind, Lukoil finished construction of a Petroleum Residue Recycling Facility with production capacity of 2.1 million tonnes per year at its LUKOIL-Nizhegorodnefteorgsintez LLC refinery. The facility is comprised of a delayed coking unit, diesel fuel and gasoline hydrotreatment unit, fractioning column, hydrogen and sulphur production unit, as well as infrastructure facilities.

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MRC) -- Saudi Aramco said it plans to invest in a USD7 B project to produce petrochemicals from crude oil at its South Korean affiliate S-Oil Corp's refining complex in the port city of Ulsan, said Reuters.

The project, named Shaheen, is the Saudi company's biggest investment in South Korea and will mark the first commercial use of Aramco and Lummus technology to produce chemicals from crude, Aramco said in a statement.

The construction of the complex, to produce up to 3.2 MMtpy of petrochemicals, will begin in 2023 and be completed by 2026, Aramco said. The chemicals-to-crude unit will have a capacity of 46,000 bpd while the capacity of the cracker unit is 1.8 MMtpy.

Saudi Aramco owns more than 60% of S-Oil. On completion of the project, S-Oil's chemical yield, by volume, could almost double to 25%, Aramco said.

Global petrochemical demand growth is "anticipated to accelerate, driven in part by rising consumption from Asia’s emerging economies," Chief Executive Amin Nasser said in the statement, which coincided with Saudi Arabian Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman's visit to South Korea on Thursday.

Asia's petrochemical sector has faced headwinds this year as slower demand from China forced cracker operators to cut output. "Eventually demand continues to grow ... you will at some point need a wave of petchems to meet that demand," Armaan Ashraf, global head of NGLs at consultancy FGE, said.

The project provides an outlet for Saudi oil while improving S-Oil's long-term competitiveness as gasoline demand is expected to decline as electric vehicle use increases, analysts said. "The Shaheen project will increase chemical yields while reducing operating costs, thus making it more competitive especially in a low-margin environment," Refinitiv analyst Chua Sok Peng said.

The companies first signed a memorandum of understanding in 2019 for the Ulsan project, which was then valued at USD6 bn.

As per MRC, Saudi Aramco has told at least four refinery customers in North Asia they will receive full contract volumes of crude oil in December. The producer is maintaining a steady supply to Asia despite the decision by the Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC) and allies including Russia, known as OPEC+, to lower the group's output target by 2 MMbpd starting this month.

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Neste, Brightlands Venture Partners, 4 Impact VC and Asahi Kasei announce a combined EUR11 mln investment into Netherlands-based startup Circularise, said Hydrocarbonprocessing.

The goal of the investment is to accelerate the transformation to more sustainable materials within the polymers and chemicals industry by providing new digital solutions to boost traceability and visibility of material flows along value chains.

“Together with partners, Neste leads the way in accelerating the transition towards more sustainable solutions for polymers and chemicals. There is an urgent need for new scalable, end-to-end digital solutions to trace renewable and recycled material flows, providing increased transparency along the value chains. Circularise provides novel solutions for this need, and we are excited to support them in speeding up the critical transition to circular solutions,” says Lars Peter Lindfors, Neste’s Senior Vice President, Innovation.

With its blockchain-based digital product passports, Circularise enables customers to improve resource use, verify provenance, conduct carbon footprint and impact assessments across supply chains. This is relevant in complex supply chains such as those of polymers, chemicals, plastics, metals, and critical raw materials. Additionally, the company provides a solution for mass balance bookkeeping, in order to support the shift from fossil feedstocks to sustainable alternatives in the plastic and chemicals industry.

Circularise’s solution helps suppliers to share sensitive data, like material composition, environmental footprint or LCA data, without risking privacy and confidentiality. This is achieved with technology, which allows suppliers to be in control of which data they want to share.

Circularise’s co-founder Jordi de Vos says: “We’re happy to welcome Neste, Brightlands Venture Partners, 4impact and Asahi Kasei as our investors. Our mission has always been clear: accelerating the shift towards a circular economy through supply chain traceability and transparency. This funding round enables us to scale our business operations, product, R&D as well as to expand our international team. It will not only accelerate our growth as a leading software provider for supply chain traceability, but also support the transition to a circular economy on a global scale.”

The agreement about capital injection has been signed, and the completion of the investment is subject to customary closing conditions. The investment is supplemented with grants from the European Commission.

“Brightlands Venture Partners is excited to lead this Series A round with such a strong consortium of VC’s and industry players. The Circularise team truly understands the challenge of bringing transparency to complex supply chains in the chemical industry and has developed a unique portfolio of tools to enable and facilitate this transition. We believe that combining the unique skill set of the Circularise team with the deep sector expertise of Brightlands Venture Partners will allow Circularise to accelerate in bringing supply chain transparency to the chemical industry,” says Mary McCarthy, Partner at Brightlands Venture Partners.

“Through collaboration with Circularise, we, Asahi Kasei, expect to contribute to building a transparent supply chain as a supplier’s responsibility and shift to a circular economy by promoting utilisation of products made from biomass and recycled raw materials,” says Takashi Morishita, President of CVC at Asahi Kasei.

“The Circularise team is and continues to be the leader in blockchain for sustainability and traceability. 4impact has been an early investor and supporter and we are thrilled to continue on our joint journey towards a circular economy. Circularise’s proprietary technology coupled with the team’s expertise and unwavering commitment will enable complex value chains to be reformed to more environmentally friendly and cost-effective ways,” says Ali Najafbagy, Managing Partner and co-founder of 4impact capital.

As per MRC, 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. 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.

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Lummus Technology announced the launch of its Novolen PPure polypropylene (PP) portfolio, a new grade-range of polymers suitable for supporting production of high-quality products for automotive, healthcare components and food packaging materials, said Hydrocabonprocessing.

The new non-phthalate process technology provides significant energy savings by delivering an improved hydrogen response with the catalyst.

"Lummus continues to raise the bar with Novolen's new line of PPure polypropylene process technologies," said Romain Lemoine, Chief Business Officer of Polymers and Petrochemicals, Lummus Technology. "The PPure portfolio provides our end users access to new and more sustainable product grades, plus the innovative technology extends the application of an existing plant and reduces CO2 emissions that is unmatched in the current marketplace. We are proud to offer operators a choice in technology based on their need or end-product targets and help our licensees remain competitive in the marketplace."

The PPure technology portfolio includes several variants applicable for an operators' process and end-product requirements. Grades within PPure include high crystallinity homopolymers, ethylene random copolymers and advanced impact copolymers.

The high-crystallinity homopolymers are suitable for injection molding, thermoforming, raffia, cast film and compounding applications. The ethylene random copolymers include high-flow characteristics and ethylene content up to 5 percent, delivering excellent clarity and low extractables, making them a perfect choice for food packaging applications. The advanced impact copolymers convey high flowability and have excellent impact-stiffness balance and no-break behavior, ideal for lightweight interior and under-the-hood automotive parts.

Lummus Novolen Technology GmbH licenses the industry leading Novolen polypropylene technology and provides engineering, technical support and advisory services to the refining industry. The Novolen portfolio includes NPM advanced process controls system, PPConnect digital data analysis platform and Lummus O3S operator training simulator. The Novolen technology includes NEON low volatile extrusion equipment and components, Novolen ComPPact process reactors, which can be used by implementing the proprietary VRC reactor system, allowing for maximum product range and capacity flexibility. Novolen catalysts are available to licensees to produce high-performance and special polypropylene grades and include Novolen CirPPlus recycled polymers, Novolen Enhance performance polymers, PPure polymers and Novocene metallocene catalysts.

Earlier it was reported that on November 8, KazMunayGas launched a new plant for the production of polypropylene with a capacity of 500 thousand tons per year in Atyrau, Western Kazakhstan. The new plant is valued at USD2.6 billion and will be able to produce up to 65 types of polypropylene to meet domestic demand, as well as export polypropylene to foreign markets. It uses Catofin and Novolen technologies provided by Lummus Technology.
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Teijin Limited announced that it will form a business partnership with European carbon-management professionals GreenDelta GmbH, Makersite GmbH, Minviro Ltd and PRe Sustainability B.V. to establish a new system aimed at accelerating Teijin’s reduction of greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions throughout product life cycles, said the company.

The partnership is expected to further Teijin’s ongoing life cycle assessment (LCA) initiatives to reduce GHG emissions in its manufacture of carbon, aramid fibers and other products as well as lower the environmental impact of product life cycles in a wide range of supply chains, including indirect emissions from the value chains of customer companies, both upstream and downstream (Scope 3), in accordance with the GHG protocol. GHG emission-calculation data and software will be used to visualize emissions from various materials, parts and products, which will support the creation of enhanced emissions-reduction measures.

GreenDelta is a developer of the broadly used LCA and sustainability software offering sustainability consultancy and support. Makersite has a platform that powers sustainable products and supply chain decisions at scale utilizing AI and digital twins. Minviro has an LCA software and is well known for consulting covering the raw materials and battery sectors. PRe Sustainability is a developer of the well-known software and providing various consulting. The know-how and expertise of these companies as well as Teijin will be used to calculate LCA and GHG emissions for environmental impact reduction in a wide range of supply chains.

Teijin aims to further its analysis of GHG emission data to reduce the environmental impacts of its own carbon, aramid fibers and fiber reinforced plastics (FRP) as well as indirect emissions in Scope 3. Teijin also plans to integrate data on the environmental value of recycled materials it collects and tracks in order to visualize the environmental impacts of materials disposal, recycling and reuse, based on which the company expects to disclose more reliable LCA quantitative data.

We remind, Teijin Frontier Co., Ltd., the Teijin Group’s fibers and products converting company, announced that its core base for polyester fiber manufacturing, Teijin Polyester (Thailand) Limited (TPL), launched a cutting-edge automated facility for the highly efficient production of polyester filaments.

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