BP earmarks USD2 bn to build Spanish green hydrogen hub

British energy company BP said it would invest nearly USD2 billion to develop a hydrogen hub in the Valencia region of Spain using its Castellon refinery as a foundation, said the company.

BP unveiled plans to build up its electrolysis capacity at Castellon to produce so-called green hydrogen. Hydrogen production is described using a color spectrum and the most common form in use today is grey hydrogen, which splits methane (CH4) into its elemental components of carbon and hydrogen.

Green hydrogen draws on an electric current generated from renewable energy to split water (H2O) into hydrogen and oxygen and BP said that would replace the grey hydrogen already in production at Castellon.

We remind, Johnson Matthey (JM) and bp announced that their co-developed, award-winning Fischer Tropsch (FT) CANS technology has been selected by Strategic Biofuels for their project which aims to produce the world’s lowest carbon footprint liquid fuel. The technology has been licensed to Strategic Biofuels, a leader in developing negative carbon footprint biofuels plants, for the company’s Louisiana Green Fuels project (LGF) in Caldwell Parish, Louisiana.

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Huntsman completed the USD593m sale of its Textile Effects division to Archroma, a company owned by the private-equity firm SK Capital Partners, said the company.

Archroma was set up by SK Capital Partners in 2013 after acquiring the textile chemicals, paper specialties and emulsions businesses from Swiss producer Clariant in 2013. It has about 3,000 employees in 25 facilities globally.

Its textile specialties, paper solutions and emulsion product segments are managed from Singapore, Switzerland and Brazil, respectively. SK Capital agreed to assume an estimated USD125m pension liabilities as part of the acquisition.

Huntsman expects proceeds will be USD540m after taxes. The sale leaves Huntsman with three business segments. Polyurethanes produces methylene diphenyl diisocyanate (MDI), polyols and thermoplastic polyurethanes (TPUs).

Performance Products makes amines and maleic anhydride (MA). Advanced Materials produces epoxy resins and other thermoset resins. The following chart shows the segments' share of 2022 revenue.

We remind, Huntsman Corporation announced that it has secured all regulatory approvals required to complete the sale of its textile effects division to Archroma, a portfolio company of SK Capital Partners. Both parties expect the transaction to close 28 February. The agreed purchase price was USD593m in cash plus assumed pension liabilities, and Huntsman expects the net after tax cash proceeds to be approximately USD540m before customary post-closing adjustments.

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Chevron announced that it will target share buybacks of USD10-20bn/year, said the company.

The company's “high return production growth” was supporting growing shareholder distributions, the US energy and chemicals major said.

“We’re growing energy supply, lowering carbon intensity and returning more cash to shareholders,” said CEO Mike Wirth.

Last month, Chevron’s board authorised a USD75bn share buyback programme, effective 1 April, with no fixed expiration date. The programme replaced a previous share repurchase authorisation of USD25bn.

The Biden administration has been critical of share buybacks, and in his recent State of the Union address President Biden proposed quadrupling the tax on corporate stock buybacks.

The government wants oil companies to invest in raising production to help bring down oil and gasoline prices, rather than buying back shares.

We remind, Chevron Corp. posted a record USD36.5 bn profit for 2022 that was more than double year-earlier earnings but fell shy of Wall Street estimates, undercut by an asset writedowns and a retreat in oil and gas prices.
The second largest U.S. oil producer's adjusted net profit for 2022 beat by about USD10 billion its previous record set in 2011. But USD1.1 B in writedowns in its international oil and gas operations in the fourth quarter left earnings short of forecasts for adjusted net profit of USD37.2 B.

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Honeywell has been selected by Ecopetrol S.A. (Ecopetrol), the largest company in Colombia and one of the main diversified energy companies on the American continent, to develop a prefeed engineering study for an Advanced Solvent Carbon Capture (ASCC) modular demonstration unit, which will be used to evaluate carbon dioxide (CO2) capture from Ecopetrol fluid catalytic cracking units (FCCUs), said the company.

FCCUs are key conversion process units within refineries that enable the production of gasoline and propylene. FCCUs are also significant sources of CO2 emissions, accounting for 15%–20% of overall emissions in a typical FCC-based refinery, including Ecopetrol?s refineries. Overall, the global refining industry produces ~3% of all CO2 emissions.

Honeywell UOP’s ASCC technology has been designed to capture CO2 from post-combustion flue gases, which are more challenging to treat due to the low-CO2 concentration and low pressure inherent in these sources. In the ASCC process, CO2 is absorbed into an amine solvent and then sent to a stripper where CO2 is separated from the solvent and then transported to be utilized or stored geologically.

Honeywell’s Advanced Solvent Carbon Capture technology is specifically designed for post-combustion flue gas applications, enabling greater than 95% CO2 capture. This technology can be retrofitted within existing plants or included as part of a new installation.

The design target of the demonstration unit is to capture 30 tpd of CO2 from Ecopetrol FCC flue gas. If implemented, the demonstration unit will provide valuable information into the performance of this technology in reducing FCC emissions, with learnings that can be used to inform deployment of commercial scale units in FCC service.

Ecopetrol is the first company in the oil and gas industry in Latin America to set the goal of achieving net-zero carbon emissions by 2050 for Scopes 1 and 2. As a mid-term target, by 2030 Ecopetrol seeks to reduce Scope 1 and 2 emissions by 25% as compared to 2019.

Honeywell’s Advanced Solvent Carbon Capture technology can help meet these goals.

We remind, Borealis will implement Honeywell’s UniSim Live software as early adopters to build process models for optimizing operations through virtual process simulation. UniSim Live will allow Borealis to extend the utility of process models to near real-time process monitoring and focus on early event detection by using digital twins to improve plant reliability. Based in Austria, Borealis is a leading international provider of polyolefins, base chemicals, and fertilizers, and also one of the world’s largest producers of polyethylene (PE) and polypropylene (PP).

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Luberef signed an engineering, procurement and construction (EPC) contract with PETROJET Co. for Yanbu facility expansion (Growth II) at a total value of SAR 555 MM (USD148 MM), which aims to expand existing units at Yanbu facility to their maximum potential production capacity to 1.3 MMtpy in 2025 by increasing Group II base oils productions or introduce the production of Group III base oils, said Hydrocarbonprocessing.

This expansion will allow flexibility for the production of additional Group II and Group III Base Oils based on market demand. Saudi Aramco Base Oil Co (Luberef) has signed a contract with Egypt-based Petrojet for the expansion of its base oils capacity in Yanbu to around 1.3m tonnes/year by 2025, the producer said on Sunday.

The engineering, procurement and construction (EPC) contract signed with Petrojet is valued at Saudi Riyal (SR) 555m, the company said in a statement on the Saudi bourse, Tadawul. The Phase II expansion project aims to increase the production of Group II and introduce Group III base oils, it said.

It will also allow Luberef the flexibilty to produce additional Group II and Group III base oils based on market demand, it said. Luberef, a subsidiary of energy giant Saudi Aramco, operates two production facilities on Saudi Arabia’s west coast at Jeddah and Yanbu, producing around 1.3m tonnes/year of Group I and Group II base oils.

The company’s Yanbu facility can currently produce 282,746 tonnes/year of Group I base oil and 710,000 tonnes/year of Group II base oils, the database showed.

Luberef last week reported that its 2022 net income rose by 31.7% year on year to SR1.98bn on the back of higher margins and sales volumes.

The company had raised SR4.95bn via an initial public offering (IPO) and started trading on Tadawul on 28 December 2022.

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