Occidental to use Siemens Energy technology for large-scale direct air capture plant

Siemens Energy compressors will be used at Occidental’s first large-scale Direct Air Capture (DAC) plant in Texas’ Permian Basin developed by 1PointFive, a subsidiary of Occidental, said Hydrocarbonprocessing.

The two compressor packages will enable the plant to capture up to 500,000 metric tons of CO2 per year when fully operational. The announcement was made today by Siemens Energy President and CEO Christian Bruch and Occidental President and CEO Vicki Hollub at the 41st annual CERAWeek energy conference hosted in Houston, TX, USA.

Siemens Energy will supply a motor-driven 13,000 horsepower (hp) fully modular wet gas compressor package and a motor-driven 8,500 hp dry gas compressor for the DAC plant. The equipment will compress the captured CO2 for additional processing and pressurize the final product into a pipeline for injection into underground reservoirs.

1PointFive’s plant is expected to provide practical solutions that hard-to-decarbonize industries can use to help achieve net zero. Captured carbon dioxide can be safely sequestered deep underground in saline formations or used to produce hydrocarbons to enable lower-carbon or net-zero transportation fuels and in products like chemicals and building materials.

We remind, Occidental said its first large-scale direct-air-capture (DAC) plant will be postponed to mid-2025, after previously targeting a late 2024 commencement. The announcement was made during its 2022 Q4 earnings call on 27 February. In October 2022, Occidental and its subsidiary signed a lease agreement in south Texas that would allow it to build enough DAC plants to extract up to 3bn tonnes of carbon dioxide (CO2) from the atmosphere, the US-based energy producer said.

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SABIC participated in a ceremony to announce the first package of Shareek projects involving large companies in Saudi Arabia, said the company.

The event was held in the presence of several dignitaries, senior businessmen and heads of major companies participating in the program.

During the ceremony, SABIC announced a strategic project to manufacture catalysts, aiming to transform Saudi Arabia into a manufacturing hub for specialized materials in line with the national industrial strategy. The project will contribute to industrial advancements as envisioned in Saudi Vision 2030, including improving competitiveness of the energy sector, developing industries associated with the oil-and-gas industries, and raising the level of local content in this area.

SABIC’s strategy for manufacturing catalysts is based on knowledge acquisition, applying the latest technologies and making improvements to them before localization. To this end, SABIC has set a two-stage approach. The first is to fully acquire Scientific Design, which was done last year, and secure a key catalyst used by SABIC for the glycol manufacturing. The second is to take the first phase forward with three new plants for the catalysts used in the manufacture of polymers and chemicals. Moreover, SABIC is collaborating with Shareek to identify the most important enablers and drivers to build the catalyst industry in the Kingdom.

In November 2022, SABIC and Saudi Aramco signed another initial agreement with Polish refining firm PKN Orlen to explore the potential of joint investments in petrochemical projects in Poland and other European markets. During the same month, the firm also announced that it is intending to set up a plant to convert crude oil into petrochemicals, capitalizing on growing demand.

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Two years ago, the ORLEN Group, as the first integrated oil&gas concern in CE, unveiled ambitious decarbonisation goals, said the company.

Today the company is accelerating. In its updated strategy to 2030 ORLEN envisages an increase in investments in renewable energy sources, state-of-the-art petrochemical assets, raising biogas production volumes and an attractive offer of alternative fuels, including a significant increase in the number of electric vehicle charging points.

The Group will spend a total of more than EUR 25bn (PLN 120bn) on green projects, representing about 40% of its capex plan to 2030. By decarbonising assets and reducing the use of fossil fuels the ORLEN Group will be able to further enhance energy security throughout CE, which is key considering the ongoing energy crisis exacerbated by Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.

The ORLEN Group’s updated strategy, in addition to ambitious investments supporting delivery of stable profits in a varied global commodity market landscape, also envisages a progressive dividend starting from PLN 4 per share. Recommended dividend for 2022 is the highest on record, at PLN 5,5 per share.

We remind, PKN ORLEN, finalised a transaction to acquire a part of Poland’s largest plastics manufacturer, Basell Orlen Polyolefins, in which the ORLEN holds an equity interest. The acquisition was approved by the antitrust authorities in Poland and the Netherlands. The business segment, acquired by ORLEN, specialises in the production and sale of low-density polyethylene (LDPE) as well as customer service in the Polish market. It is a polymer commonly used to make consumer and industrial products, found in plastic films, bags, canisters, food packaging, as well as components of electronic devices, such as wires and cables.

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Parkland Corp. says it will not go ahead with its plan to build a stand-alone renewable diesel complex at its refinery in Burnaby, B.C., said Winnipegfreepress.

The company says it made the decision as it faced rising project costs, a lack of market certainty around emerging renewable fuels and legislation in the U.S. that advantages U.S. producers.

Parkland had announced a plan in May 2022 to build a stand-alone renewable diesel complex within its Burnaby refinery, capable of producing 6,500 barrels per day.

The company says it is still going ahead with its plan to expand co-processing of renewable fuel alongside traditional petroleum-based materials at the refinery to 5,500 barrels per day.

The announcement came as Parkland raised its quarterly dividend to 34 cents per share from 32.5 cents and reported a fourth-quarter profit of USD69 million or 39 cents per diluted share on USD8.72 billion in sales and operating revenue.

The result compared with a profit of USD22 million or 15 cents per diluted share on USD6.29 billion in sales and operating revenue in the fourth quarter of 2021. This report by The Canadian Press was first published March 3, 2023.

We remind, in 2021, Parkland Fuel plans to increase renewable fuel production by more than 6,500 b/d at its refinery in Burnaby, British Columbia, to offer more low carbon products. Roughly C$600mn ($460mn) will be needed to expand existing facilities and build a stand-along renewable diesel complex on the site of its 55,000 b/d refinery, located in greater Vancouver on the Pacific coast of Canada. The refinery co-processed about 1,500 b/d of renewable fuels across 2021.

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Russian oil producer Lukoil has started ship-to-ship (STS) loadings of ultra-low-sulfur diesel (ULSD) off its western exclave of Kaliningrad, according to traders and Refinitiv data, said Hydrocarbonprocessing.

About 33,000 tons of ULSD loaded by Lukoil in mid-February on to the M.T. Kalne tanker in the Baltic port of Primorsk has been taken to the port of Kaliningrad and is now being transferred on to the vessel Sea Runner, according to traders and Refinitiv data.

Lukoil has previously conducted STS loadings of Urals oil near Kaliningrad. Russia also plans to start STS loadings of light oil products and liquid petroleum gas (LPG) near its Baltic port of Ust-Luga, according to Federal State Unitary Enterprise (FSEU) Rosmorport.

A full EU embargo on Russian oil products went into effect on Feb. 5 and traders have since rerouted diesel exports to Africa and Asia, as well as used STS transfers.

We remind, Lukoil completes reconstruction of several units at Volgograd refinery. A large-scale reconstruction has been completed at the Volgograd refinery. The project included modernization of the CDU-VDU-5 crude distillation unit with production capacity of 3.5 MMtpy and the solvent extraction unit with production capacity of 300, 000 tpy. Over 230 core equipment items were installed and technologically outdated units were decommissioned. The share of Russia-made equipment installed during the reconstruction exceeded 70%. The construction site spanned the area of 34 thousand square metres; investments into the project exceeded 12 B roubles.

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