North American chemical railcar traffic fell

North American chemical railcar traffic fell for a 21st straight week, with loadings for the week ended 11 February down 2.6% year on year to 46,254, led by a 5.8% decline in the US, according to the latest freight rail data by the Association of American Railroads (AAR).

For the first six weeks of 2023 ended 11 February, North American chemical rail traffic was down 5.2% year on year to 264,053 railcar loadings, with US traffic down by 9.1%, to 187,166 loadings.

In the US, chemical railcar loadings represent about 20% of chemical transportation by tonnage, with trucks, barges and pipelines carrying the rest. In Canada, chemical producers rely on rail to ship more than 70% of their products, with some exclusively using rail.

We remind, North American chemical railcar traffic fell for a 20th straight week, with loadings for the week ended 4 February down 2.0% year on year to 45,381, led by a 3.5% decline in the US. For the first five weeks of 2023 ended 4 February, North American chemical rail traffic was down 5.6% year on year to 218,205 railcar loadings, with US traffic down by 9.8% or 154,499 loadings.

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PetroChina completed trial runs at a 1.2 million tonne-per-year ethylene facility in its newly launched refinery complex in south China on Sunday, China Daily reported.

PetroChina Guangdong PC announced that the ethylene plant, a 10-million-ton refining and chemical integration project, has successfully produced on-spec products and entered the stage of comprehensive trial production on Feb 12. PetroChina Guangdong Petrochemical Refining and Chemical Integration Project, located in Jieyang, Guangdong Province, covers an area of 920 hectares, with crude oil refining production capacity of 20 million mt/year aromatics capacity 2.6 million tons/year and ethylene capacity 1.2 million tons/year.

The successful trial production of ethylene plant ensures the stable output of naphtha LPG products in the upstream refinery unit, and provides stable feedstock for downstream polyethylene plant, so as to ensure the overall stable operation of refining and chemical integration.

The 400kt/year HDPE plant and 800kt/year HDPE/LLDPE plant of PetroChina Guangdong PC plan to put into production in early 2023.

We remind, LyondellBasell announced that their leading high-pressure Lupotech process technology has been licensed to PetroChina Jilin Petrochemical Company in Jilin City, Jilin Province, P.R. of China. The license will provide for two production trains: a 100 kiloton per year (KTA) Autoclave and a 300 KTA Tubular line for low-density Polyethylene (LDPE) with ethylene Vinyl Acetate Copolymer (EVA). In addition, an additional 400 KTA Hostalen “Advanced Cascade Process” (ACP) line to produce high-density Polyethylene (HDPE) will be built at the same time.

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India’s competition authority granted merger clearance for the planned joint venture for high-performance engineering materials by Advent International and specialty chemicals company LANXESS, said the company.

Other relevant competition authorities approved the transaction in the course of last year and lately the EU Commission granted clearance on January 9, 2023. The transaction is therefore ready for closing which is now planned to take place no later than the beginning of April 2023.

We remind, On May 31, 2022, Advent and LANXESS announced the envisaged establishment of an Advent controlled, leading global engineering materials joint venture company with sales of around EUR 3 billion, combining the DSM Engineering Materials business with LANXESS’ High Performance Materials business.

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Sasol Chemicals will deliver a first fill of its latest Fischer-Tropsch (FT) catalyst free of charge to Ineratec, in one of several recent commitments to promising renewable projects, said Chenegonline.

The FT catalyst will be used in the lighthouse project the Karlsruhe-based clean tech company is currently building at Industriepark Hoechst near Frankfurt, Germany.

The project is based on the company’s recent operational success at industrial demonstration scale. According to Ineratec, the new facilities will become the largest production plant for paraffinic synthetic fuels in the world. The plant’s output is estimated to reach up to 2,500 tons per year, starting as early as 2023. The catalyst provided by Sasol Chemicals will make a significant contribution to produce high amounts of the target products, which is largely designated for refinement into Sustainable Aviation Fuels. “Synthetic fuels are a cornerstone in the global challenge to reach our climate goals,” said Ineratec co-founder and General Manager, Philipp Engelkamp. “Our goal is to quickly build up production capacities. Together with our partners, we want to over succeed the required quota for SAF in 2030.” Ineratec plans to develop the technology on a global scale and will invest over 30 million Euros in this first plant alone. The German Government also strongly supports the project and provides funding of around 6 million euros within a funding program of the Federal Ministry for the Environment, Nature Conservation, Nuclear Safety and Consumer Protection.

“We are in the fortunate position to aid our partners in pushing the envelope when it comes to synthetic fuels,” Dr. Dirk Schar, Manager Technical Marketing at Sasol Chemicals, has commented. “Sasol’s high-grade products are an integral part of many chemical processes. By making commitments such as this one, we are assisting others to realise what we ourselves have chosen as our mission for Sasol Chemicals: Innovating for a better world!”

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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RePEaT Co has signed a deal to license its chemical recycling technology for polyester products to China's Zhejiang Jianxin Jiaren New Materials Co, parent firm Teijin said.

RePEaT is a joint venture established by Japanese firms Teijin, JGC Holdings Corp and ITOCHU Corp to license recycling technology based on Teijin’s expertise in dimethyl terephthalate (DMT), Teijin said in a statement.

"RePEaT will provide a technology that uses the organic compound DMT for the chemical decomposition, conversion and then repolymerisation of polyester (PET)," the company said.

"Zhejiang Jianxin will use the technology in a polyester-product recycling plant it plans to start up in Shaoxing, Zhejiang province next year," it added.

Financial details of the deal were not disclosed.

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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