Petrobras awards contract to Chevron Lummus Global in Brazil

Chevron Lummus Global LLC (CLG) announced a recent contract award from Petroleo Brasileiro S.A. (Petrobras) for a new 12,580 BPD hydroisodewaxing (HIDW) unit at the GasLub Hub, a lubricant plant in Itaborai, Rio de Janeiro state, Brazil. Chevron Lummus Global's scope includes the technology license, basic design engineering, and research unit testing services, said the company.

Employing CLG's ISODEWAXING and ISOFINISHING technologies, the unit will produce a wide viscosity range of premium API Group II/ II+ lubricating base oil grades for the first time in Brazil and South America. The addition of this unit is expected to bring significant benefits to the region by minimizing existing dependence on imported base oils, which is part of Petrobras' strategy to produce higher value-added and quality products to better serve the market.

Decades of dedicated research and development have made Chevron Lummus Global the most trusted technology provider for premium base oils. Since Chevron's invention of ISODEWAXING technology in 1993, CLG lube base oil technologies have provided operators worldwide with enhanced performance, profitability and optimum utilization of existing assets.

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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US energy and chemical engineer KBR has won a contract to provide its K-GreeN technology to a planned green ammonia project in the US, said the company.

The project is planned by a company called Avina Clean Hydrogen. KBR will provide the process technology licence and engineering design for the grassroots project to produce 2,200 tonnes/day of green ammonia.

KBR’s design for Avina encompasses an integrated green ammonia solution from electrolysis to ammonia synthesis, it said. It did not comment on project costs or timelines for construction and start-up of production.

The contract award comes after Avina announced long-term offtake agreements in December 2022 for 100% of the output from the first phase of a green ammonia plant under development on the Texas Gulf Coast.

Avina could not be reached for additional comment on Tuesday. The company is described as a developer of clean hydrogen plants, with 1.5GW of clean hydrogen plants planned or under development.

We remind, KBR has launched a new ethylene and propylene process technology, utilising 100% hydrogen-fuelled burners, “for zero emissions from the ethylene cracking furnaces,” said the US energy and chemicals engineer company. The new SCOREKlean technology would play a major role to decarbonise the petrochemical industry, given that furnaces are the largest sources of greenhouse gas emissions in the industry, KBR said.

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US chemicals and specialty materials company Trinseo has agreed to sell its plant at Matamoros in Mexico’s Tamaulipas state to thermoplastics firm Plaskolite, it said in a statement.

The sale comes in the wake of Trinseo’s consolidation of polymethyl methacrylate (PMMA) sheet products from Matamoros into its continuous sheet manufacturing operations in Florence, Kentucky.

Plaskolite will not acquire any portion of Trinseo’s sheet business, Trinseo said. The sale is expected to close within coming weeks. Financial details were not disclosed.

“The consolidation of our sheet manufacturing business helps us optimise our resources and continue to deliver on our transformation strategy,” said Trinseo president and CEO Frank Bozich. “Our sale of the Matamoros assets to Plaskolite will provide an opportunity for the plant to continue to operate and provide jobs for the Matamoros community,” he said. The plant is located on nearly 11 acres in Matamoros City.

We remind, Trinseo reported a Q4 net loss of USD365.3m largely because of a pre-tax, non-cash goodwill impairment charge of USD297m related to its PMMA business and Aristech Surfaces reporting units. The company saw Q4 sales fall by almost 25% compared with the same quarter a year go while costs fell at a slower pace. The following table shows the company's Q4 financial performance. Figures are in millions of dollars.

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Covestro has completed the previously announced sale of its additives manufacturing business to 3D printing company Stratasys, the Germany-based polymer company said.

The additives manufacturing business provides material solutions for common polymer 3D printing processes and includes, among others, products of the resins and functional materials business Covestro acquired from DSM in 2021.

In addition to the selling price of about EUR43m, Covestro could receive an “earn-out” of up to EUR37m from Stratasys, subject to the achievement of certain performance metrics, it said.

Included in the sale are employees, research and development facilities and offices across Europe, the US and Asia.

We remind, Covestro has successfully started up a new world-scale facility for the production of chlorine in Tarragona, Spain. It is the first world-scale production plant for chlorine based upon the highly innovative and energy efficient ODC (oxygen depolarized cathode) technology invented by Covestro and its partners.

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TotalEnergies Corbion, POSCO International and ESOL announced a partnership aimed at developing the PLA recycling infrastructure and technology in South Korea, said the company.

Hoping to expand its portfolio by entering the biobased plastic recycling sector, POSCO International will oversee and finance the project. The trading company has been working with bioplastics since 2019 and aspires to fully develop post-consumer recycling technology for PLA by 2026.

While TotalEnergies Corbion is set to contribute its own knowledge and experience of advanced PLA recycling, ESOL will source the PLA waste from post-consumer recycling and work towards advancing the necessary technology to collect, sort, clean, purify, and reuse the PLA. The latter is already producing PLA-based products in Korea and aims to establish recycling infrastructure throughout its supply chain for a more sustainable use of plastics in the country’s growing PLA market.

With the global bioplastic market said to be expanding at an annual growth rate of over 20%, the companies aspire to promote the use of PLA in various foodservice and packaging products, such as bottles and containers, through the mechanical and advanced recycling of TotalEnergies Corbion’s Luminy PLA. Recycling a material that is already biobased is expected to facilitate a low carbon footprint and increased circularity.

We remind, TotalEnergies and Paprec, leader in plastic recycling in France, have signed a long-term commercial agreement to develop a French value chain for advanced recycling of plastic film wastes. The agreement will secure the supply of TotalEnergies' future advanced plastic recycling plant in Grandpuits. Following the terms of this agreement, Citeo, the main organization in charge of end-of-life household packaging in France, will provide a stream of flexible plastic waste sorted from post-consumer packaging.

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