Fire at Kuwait's Mina al-Ahmadi refinery put out

MOSCOW (MRC) -- Firefighters managed to put out a fire in one of the bitumen production unit's lines at Kuwait's Mina al-Ahmadi oil refinery, Kuwait National Petroleum Company (KNPC) said in a statement posted on Friday, as per Reuters.

KNPC did not mention if production and operations were affected there due to the fire.

We remind, a fire broke out at Dow's Plaquemine chemical facility in Louisiana. Everyone at the facility was accounted for and the fire was being managed by the company's Emergency Operations Center, Dow Louisiana said in a statement posted on Facebook, adding that they were in contact with officials.

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MOSOCW (MRC) -- Austrian oil and gas company OMV reported a stronger-than-forecast drop in its second-quarter core earnings because of falling energy prices, said Reuters.

The company reported a clean current cost of supplies (CCS) operating result of 1.18 billion euros (USD1.29 billion) for the April-to-June period, down 60% from the same period a year prior. Analysts had forecast a second-quarter clean CCS operating result of 1.27 billion euros, according to a company-provided consensus.

Sales revenues in the second quarter fell 39% year-on-year to 8.98 billion euros. The company lowered its forecast for the price of Brent crude oil price this year to an average of $75-80 per barrel from a previous forecast above USD80 per barrel. Last year, the Brent crude oil price was USD101 per barrel.

Core earnings in OMV's energy segment halved, hit by hedging losses due to volatility in natural gas supply from Russia, as the company flagged ongoing uncertainty regarding future deliveries from the Russian state-owned gas producer Gazprom.

The company also faced significant headwinds in its chemicals and materials segment, including at petrochemicals subsidiary Borealis.

OMV is in talks with the state-owned Abu Dhabi National Oil Company (ADNOC) over a possible merger of their petrochemical divisions.

Core earnings in OMV's chemicals and materials segment fell 99% year-on-year to 7 million euros, with the company pointing to a slowdown in the chemicals sector.

Borealis incurred a loss of 58 million euros in the second quarter.


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MOSCOW (MRC) -- Spanish oil company Repsol will invest more than 120 million euros (USD132.95 million) to retrofit a decades-old diesel plant to produce second-generation biofuels, said Hydrocarbonprocessing.

As part of its strategy to pivot to renewables, Repsol targets the production of two million tons of low-carbon fuels by 2030, tripling the capacity it had at the beginning of this decade.

The Puertollano plant, built in the 1960s, will start producing biofuels for cars, trucks an shipping at the end of 2025 and will have a capacity of 240,000 tons per year. It will use organic waste, such as used cooking oils.

This will be the second plant of this type in the Iberia region, along with Repsol's plant at its Cartagena refinery, the spokesperson said.

Biofuels are seen as key to decarbonize transportation in sectors hard to electrify, like aviation and shipping.

We remind, Repsol will nearly double the production capacity of its Reciclex recycled polyolefins with a new production line at its Puertollano Industrial Complex in Spain. The company will invest EUR 26 M to install a new 25,000 tonnes/y production line for polyolefins with mechanically recycled plastic content. Repsol currently has 16,000 tonnes/y of Reciclex polyolefins capacity.

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MOSCOW (MRC) -- Aramco, TotalEnergies, and SABIC have converted oil derived from plastic waste into ISCC+ certified circular polymers in the hopes of creating a domestic value chain for the advanced recycling of plastics into circular polymers in Saudi Arabia, said Packagingeurope.

In a reported first for the Middle East and North Africa, the plastic waste-derived oil (PDO) was processed at Aramco and TotalEnergies’ jointly-owned SATORP refinery in Jubail, Saudi Arabia. SABIC affiliate PETROKEMYA then utilised the PDO as a feedstock to produce the certified circular polymers.

Although unsorted plastics can become a roadblock in mechanical recycling processes, it is claimed that this process is compatible with non-sorted plastics – a benefit that hopes to address challenges associated with end-of-life plastics.

The SATORP refinery, PETROKEMYA, and Aramco’s Ju’aymah NGL Fractionation Plant have all received ISCC+ certification, with the companies stating this will ‘assure transparency and traceability of the recycled origin of feedstock and products.’

Francois Good, TotalEnergies SVP Refining and Petrochemical, Africa and Middle East, continued: “This advanced plastic recycling initiative reflects TotalEnergies’ ambition to concretely contribute to addressing the challenge of end-of-life of plastics. TotalEnergies, in partnership with Aramco, recently announced the investment decision for its giant petrochemical project Amiral.

In an opposite process, Nestle Mexico and Greenback Recycling Technologies are using advanced recycling technology from Enval Limited to convert hard-to-recycle plastics into pyrolytic oil.

Meanwhile, SABIC worked with Scientex last December to chemically recycle ‘ocean-bound’ plastic waste into feedstock to produce flexible polypropylene packaging for a Malaysian noodles brand; and BASF signed an agreement with ARCUS Greencycling Technologies to purchase pyrolysis oil derived from mixed plastic waste.

We remind, Aramco, one of the world’s leading integrated energy and chemicals companies, has successfully closed a landmark transaction to acquire a 10% interest in Rongsheng Petrochemical Co. Ltd. for USD3.4 B through its subsidiary Aramco Overseas Company BV, based in the Netherlands.

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MOSCOW (MRC) -- Lotte Chemical Titan's second-quarter net loss widened year on year to Malaysian ringgit (M$) 327.7m (USD72.5m) on weak market demand amid a volatile external macroeconomic environment, the producer said.

Higher cost of operations also caused the net loss to balloon in April-June 2023, the company said in a statement. “In general, we have experienced a challenging period under the weight of a deteriorating external environment,” company president and CEO Park Hyun Chul said.

Market volatility will remain elevated amid the global economic slowdown and with new capacities exerting downward pressure on petrochemical prices, Park said. “Against the backdrop, the management is steadfast to its optimisation plan by balancing our production outputs and economic efficiencies while maintaining strict cost management to ensure the financial positions of the group remain healthy,” he said.

The company’s planned petrochemical complex called Lotte Chemical Indonesia Ethylene (LINE) Project “is progressing on schedule”, with completion slated in 2025, Park said. The LINE Project is expected to boost Lotte Chemical Titan’s annual production capacity in Malaysia and Indonesia by 65% to about 5.88m tonnes.

We remind, Indonesia's state-controlled gas company Perusahaan Gas Negara on Thursday said it would supply natural gas to a petrochemical plant operated by a unit of South Korea's Lotte Chemical Corp. PGN signed a gas sales agreement with Lotte Chemical Indonesia (LCI) to supply between 2.62 billion and 10.5 billion British thermal units per day (BBTUD) to power Lotte's plant to produce ethylene.

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