Holiferm and Sasol Chemicals expand collaboration to develop and market sustainable surfactants

Holiferm Limited and Sasol Chemicals, a business unit of Sasol Ltd., announced a collaboration to produce and market rhamnolipids and mannosylerythritol lipids (MELs), said the company.

This collaboration expands the partnership announced in March 2022 between the two companies to develop and commercialise another biosurfactant product, sophorolipids. The partnership will use Holiferm’s proprietary technology to develop the fermentation-derived biosurfactants. Sasol and Holiferm will develop and commercialise formulations and applications for the new molecules.

Biosurfactants use natural materials to produce surfactants, which are key ingredients in detergents, cleaning products and personal care products. Sophorolipids, rhamnolipids and MELs are all glycolipids made through fermentation, using yeast or bacteria to convert vegetable oils and/or sugars into final product. The Holiferm process offers an extensive reduction in carbon footprint compared with conventional surfactants.

“The imminent commercial launch of our second and third products validates Holiferm’s process to develop process technologies to produce chemicals from natural raw materials and enable their broad commercialisation,” said Vicky De Groof, Chief Technical Officer of Holiferm. “It is also a testament to the exceptional work of the laboratory team."

“By expanding our product portfolio from sophorolipids to include rhamnolipids and MELs, we aim to provide our customers a platform of solutions based solely on biosurfactants,” said Silke Hoppe, Vice President of Essential Care Chemicals for Sasol Chemicals. “Their carbon footprint as well as their mildness and high performance places these products in a leading position in today’s biosurfactant market.

Since March 2022, Sasol and Holiferm have collaborated on research and development into accelerating innovation to help meet the growing demand for sustainable solutions in primary surfactants. This has now been expanded to include developing processes to manufacture rhamnolipids and MELs. The companies’ joint aspiration is to prepare for testing at pilot plant scale, before they begin a full manufacturing process at Holiferm’s Wallasey plant.

We remind, Sasol announced that its world-scale U.S. ethane cracker has reached beneficial operation on 27 August 2019. Sasol’s new cracker, the heart of its Lake Charles Chemicals Project (LCCP), is the third and most significant of the seven LCCP facilities to come online and will provide feedstock to six new derivative units at Sasol’s Lake Charles multi-asset site.

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Azelis, a leading global innovation service provider in the specialty chemicals and food ingredients industry, announces that it has signed an agreement to acquire 100% of the shares of Lidorr Elements (‘Lidorr’), one of Israel's leading specialty chemical distributors in crop-protection, industrial materials, and care & nutrition, said the company.

The acquisition expands Azelis’ footprint in Israel, further building on its growing network in the region following the acquisition of Orokia in 2020. Lidorr’s wide portfolio of hundreds of products significantly strengthens Azelis’ lateral value chain in the Agricultural & Environmental Solutions as well as in Advanced Materials & Additives market segments.

Lidorr was founded in 1970 by Zvi Lidorr and is managed to this day by his son and daughter, Ami Lidor and Vered Lidor-Mary. Headquartered in the Ramat Hasharon, a suburb of Tel Aviv, the company also has a logistics and laboratory facility in Beit Shemesh in the south of the country. With this acquisition, Azelis significantly strengthens its presence and expertise with a team of 90 employees, including 35 technical sales experts, serving over 400 customers in Israel, among which are Israel's top manufacturers and retailers.

We remind, Azelis, a leading global innovation service provider in the specialty chemicals and food ingredients industry, announced a new distribution agreement with Sun Chemical, a global leader in inks, coatings, pigments, and advanced materials. Effective from January 1st, 2023, this new mandate allows Azelis to strengthen its portfolio of pigment products in the coatings, adhesives, sealants, elastomers (CASE) and advanced materials & additives (AM&A) markets in France and Benelux. The agreement includes the pigment portfolio that Sun Chemical acquired from BASF in 2021.

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Eni CEO, Claudio Descalzi, and the CEO of Sonatrach, Toufik Hakkar, signed in Algiers two agreements which outline future joint projects on energy supply, energy transition and decarbonisation, said the company.

The agreements were signed in the presence of the Prime Minister of Italy, Giorgia Meloni, and the President of the People's Democratic Republic of Algeria, Abdelmadjid Tebboune.

Through these agreements, Eni and Sonatrach will identify opportunities for the reduction of greenhouse gas and methane gas emissions and will define energy efficiency initiatives, renewable energy developments, green hydrogen projects and carbon dioxide capture and storage projects, to support energy security and at the same time a sustainable energy transition. In addition, the companies will conduct studies to identify possible measures to improve Algeria's energy export capacity to Europe.

Eni CEO Claudio Descalzi commented: “These agreements bear witness to our commitment to ensuring Italy's security of supply while at the same time pursuing our decarbonisation objectives. The partnership between Italy and Algeria gets stronger today, and Algeria's key role as one of Europe's main energy suppliers is confirmed”.

Eni has been present in Algeria since 1981. With an equity production of 100,000 barrels of oil equivalent per day, Eni is the main international company in the country.

We remind, Eni believes it will be able to completely replace Russian gas imports by 2025 as uncertainty over Moscow's energy supplies to Europe forces countries to seek alternative sources. After signing new gas supply agreements with Algeria, Egypt and Congo earlier this year, Eni sees additional opportunities arising in other countries including Libya, Angola, Mozambique, and Indonesia, as well as in its home country.

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Silleno LLP, a joint venture between Russia's SIBUR Holding and Kazakhstan's national oil and gas company KazMunayGas, will soon start Front End Engineering Design for a polyethylene plant in Kazakhstan, Sergei Komyshan, SIBUR's executive director of marketing and sales, told Interfax.

"FEED usually takes a year or so," he said. Commenting on SIBUR's plans in Russia in 2023, Komyshan said the company has considered various scenarios for oil production and refining in Russia and was preparing for any options in terms of feedstock supply.

"We have had to significantly expand the scope of variability for which we are preparing the company, and one of the factors is the level of production and oil refining in Russia. We looked at a fairly wide range of scenarios for both a small increase and a decrease in oil production and refining, and we believe that we can prepare for this. This will require some flexibility from the company, but we have begun to make preparations and do not expect that the drop will be significant," he said.

National Wealth Fund Samruk-Kazyna, KazMunayGas, SIBUR and the stakeholders of operating companies in November 2022 signed heads of agreement to create joint ventures based on Kazakhstan Petrochemical Industries Inc. LLP and Silleno LLP. They agreed on terms and conditions for their partnership in the joint ventures based in the National Industrial Petrochemical Technical Park, a special economic zone in Atyrau. This includes investment in the construction of the polyethylene plant with annual production capacity of 1.25 million tonnes, as well as sales of polypropylene to be produced by the plant with design capacity of 500,000 tonnes a year.

SIBUR's stake in each joint venture is 40%. Kazakhstan Petrochemical Industries Inc. LLP started to produce polypropylene in early November 2022.

We remind, KazMunayGas (KMG) and Chevron Philips Chemical representatives signed a license and engineering agreement for the second phase of the construction of an integrated gas and chemical complex in the Atyrau region. The contract outlines the development of a polyethylene plant to produce polyethylene using MarTECH® ADL technology, and a license to produce 625,000 tons of polyethylene a year.

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Technip Energies – as part of its long-term agreement with Aramco – has been awarded a contract to upgrade sulfur recovery facilities at Aramco’s Riyadh Refinery, said Hydrocarbonprocessing.

This contract covers the implementation of three new tail gas treatment (TGT) units, improving the performance of the existing three sulfur recovery units (SRU) to comply with more stringent regulations for sulfur dioxide emissions, with recovery efficiency at more than 99.9%.

The project will be executed locally, leveraging Saudi economic resources and infrastructure. The existing sulfur recovery units in the Riyadh refinery were designed and built by Technip Energies in the early 2000s.

Bhaskar Patel, SVP Sustainable Fuels, Chemicals & Circularity of Technip Energies, commented: “We are pleased to be entrusted by Aramco to work on the upgrading program of their refinery in Riyadh. By leveraging our long-standing relationship, which has been in place since the mid-1990s, we are committed to make this project another success, while utilizing local resources and supply chain.”

We remind, Technip Energies has been awarded a large contract for Project Management Consultancy (PMC) by Kuwait Oil Company (KOC). The five-year framework agreement contract covers front-end engineering design (FEED), project management, and associated services for KOC’s major projects. This contract represents a renewal of the first five-year framework agreement that was awarded to Technip Energies by KOC in 2014.

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