China orders investigation into explosion at Panjin Haoye chemical factory

China's State Security Commission has ordered an investigation into the recent explosion at Panjin Haoye Chemical Co Ltd's factory, according to a statement from the Liaoning provincial government, said Reuters.

Twelve people were killed and one is missing after an explosion occurred on Jan. 15 at the refinery and petrochemical complex in China's northern Liaoning province.

We remind, Panjin Haoye Chemical Co Ltd has shut down its entire oil refinery and petrochemical complex after an explosion on Sunday killed five people and left eight missing, according to trade sources and a local consultancy.
The explosion occurred at 3:13 p.m. (0713 GMT) on Sunday at Panjin Haoye while workers were carrying out maintenance work at an alkylation facility.

The company is an independent refinery and chemical producer in the city of Panjin in Liaoning province in northeastern China.

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SK Geo Centric, a subsidiary of SK Innovation’s, has signed a contract with British company Plastic Energy, which specializes in chemical recycling of plastic waste, completing the “last puzzle” of the world’s first plastic recycling complex to be built in 2025, as per Plasticenergy.

Amid a surge in demand for plastic recycled products worldwide, SK Geo Centric’s green business is building momentum.

SK Geo Centric announced on the 6th January (local time) at CES 2023 that it had signed a contract with Plastic Energy to introduce the technology to build a pyrolysis plant in the Ulsan plastic recycling complex. Na Kyung-soo, CEO of SK Geo Centric, Bruno Guillon, Chief Commercial Officer of Plastic Energy, and others attended the signing ceremony.

SK Geo Centric will start the construction process for its pyrolysis plant this year. By introducing Plastic Energy’s advanced pyrolysis technology in Ulsan, South Korea, it will promote an annual capacity of 66,000 tonnes of end-of-life plastic waste input, the largest capacity in Asia. SK Geo Centric plans to improve pyrolysis oil to an even higher quality by creating a pyrolysis oil post-treatment plant that implements the company’s own technologies.

The two companies also signed an MOU for the “strategic partnership to expand the advanced recycling business in selected countries across Asia.” They agreed to respond preemptively to growing global demand by establishing a joint venture to develop opportunities to establish new advanced recycling facilities following Ulsan in the Seoul metropolitan area, China, Japan and other key markets. Plastic Energy’s patented TAC™ process recycles plastics that normally cannot be mechanically recycled, converting them into a feedstock called TACOIL™, used to create virgin-quality plastics that have been deployed in numerous consumer packaging products including for food and cosmetics.

SK Geo Centric announced the official name of the Ulsan plastic recycling complex as the “Ulsan Advanced Recycling Cluster (ARC).” SK Geo Centric gathered the three advanced chemical recycling technologies in one place through strategic collaboration with global companies such as PCT (US), Loop (Canada), and Plastic Energy (UK). This action is expected to enable efficient plastic recycling.

SK Geo Centric is cooperating with PureCycle Technologies in the US on Ultra PP supercritical extraction technology that removes pollutants from waste plastics, and has signed a contract to create a joint venture following an equity investment of 55 million dollars It has also secured exclusive sales rights in Korea and the rights to conduct business in China and Southeast Asia.

We remind, SK Geo Centric and Tokuyama, a Japanese chemical corporation, will form a 50:50 joint venture (JV) in Ulsan, Korea, to generate and market high purity isopropyl alcohol (IPA) for semiconductors with a production capacity of 30,000 tonnes/y (tpa). On 29 Dec 2021, SK Geo Centric reported that the firm and Tokuyama decided to spend nearly Won 120 bn in JV. The facility will finalize construction and start pilot operations in 2023 before commercialization in 2024.

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Indian Oil Corporation (IOC) has recorded an almost 17-fold growth in standalone net profit to Rup 21,836 crore for the financial year ended 31 Mar 2021 (FY 2020-2021), from Rup 1313 crore in FY 2019-2020, said Economictimes.

It attributed the sharp growth in bottomline to higher inventory hikes and petrochemical margins. However, its annual revenue from operations dived year-on-year by more than 9% to Rup 514,890 crore. This was due to the decline in total fuel demand because of COVID-19. For 4Q FY 2020-2021, the standalone net profit stood at Rup 8781 crore.

This is compared to a loss of Rup 5185 crore during 4Q FY 2019-2020. Annual crude processing and pipeline throughput dived by 10% to 62.351 M tonnes (mt) and 76 mt, respectively. However, IOC increased the length of its pipeline network by 2.3% to 15,007 km in FY 2020-2021. Its total local sales plummeted by 11% during 2020-2021 to 72.71 mt. Sale was down by 17% for petrol, 14% for diesel, and 52% for ATF. Local sales of LPG increased by 4.7%.

Even as total revenue dived, the company's contribution to the central exchequer in 2020-2021 escalated by 60% to Rup 153,827 crore. On the other hand, IOC's share in States dived by 1.2% to Rup 84,959 crore. Average Gross Refining Margin (GRM) for the year is USD5.64/barrel, a year-on-year increase from $0.08/barrel. The present cost of GRM for FY 2020-2021 after offsetting inventory hikes comes to USD2.31/barrel.

The refinery run for Apr 2021 has been 96.1% while for 1-17 May 2021 has been 84%. In comparison, the total refinery run rate for FY 2020-2021 stood at 89.5%. IOC has set a capital expenditure goal of Rup 26,000 crore for the ongoing financial year.

We remind, India has announced an extension on the deadline for the implementation of the quality certifications mandated by the Bureau of Indian Standards (BIS) on purified terephthalic acid (PTA) imports. The Department of Chemicals and Petrochemicals, under the Ministry of Chemicals and Fertilizers, via an order issued on 21 December 2022, set 22 June 2023 as the implementation date for the certification to come into effect.

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BASF investors said that oil and gas business Wintershall Dea's exit from Russia, though painful, clears the way for plans to take it public and for BASF to focus on its chemicals operations, said Reuters.

BASF late Tuesday flagged a 7.3 B euro (USD7.9 B) writedown on Wintershall Dea (WD), as the energy business, in which Russian billionaire Mikhail Fridman's investment firm LetterOne owns a 27% stake, pulls out of Russia.

Portfolio manager Arne Rautenberg of mutual fund company Union Investment, among the 10 largest BASF shareholders, welcomed BASF drawing a line.

"No-one in the market has ascribed any more value to the Russian activities," Rautenberg told Reuters, adding that the remainder of WD had been boosted by high oil and gas prices.

"The way to an IPO, which has long been in the making, has now been paved," he added.

It took the company much longer than other oil companies to face up to the loss of its Russian operations, with Wintershall Dea CEO Mario Mehren saying last year that the company could not just allow assets to fall into the hands of the Russian state.

We remind, BASF has broken ground on the third and final phase of the methylene diphenyl diisocyanate (MDI) expansion project at its Verbund site in Geismar, Louisiana, announced in July 2022. The company will increase production capacity to approximately 600,000 metric tons per year by the middle of the decade to support the ongoing growth of its North American MDI customers.

BASF is a leading supplier, manufacturer, and innovation partner of plastic additives. Its comprehensive and innovative product portfolio includes additives that provide ease in processing, and heat and light resistance to a variety of polymers and applications including molded articles, films, fibers, sheets, and extruded profiles.
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The chief executive of oil major TotalEnergies said this week that strikes against France's planned pension reform should not disrupt operations at refineries, adding that petrol stations were also prepared for the strike action, said Reuters.

Refinery operations will only be disrupted if strikes last several days, Patrick Pouyanne told BFM TV in an interview from Davos.

A union official said earlier on Wednesday that no refined oil products will be shipped from the TotalEnergies' refinery in Dunkirk, northern France during the strike.

We remind, LANXESS and French energy group TotalEnergies have entered into a cooperation on the supply of biocircular styrene. Unlike conventional styrene, the raw material used by TotalEnergies is based on tall oil, which is derived from a tree resin and is a by-product of pulp production. LANXESS uses the styrene to produce sustainable ion exchange resins. These products are applied primarily in the treatment of wastewater and chemical process flows as well as in the food industry.

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