BASF signed a 25-year agreement with GEDI

BASF signed a 25-year power purchase agreement (PPA) with China Energy Engineering Group Guangdong Electric Power Design Institute Co., Ltd. (GEDI) to purchase renewable electricity for its Zhanjiang Verbund site, said the company.

The PPA is a further step in the renewable energy partnership between BASF and GEDI following the Letter of Intent (LOI) signed in September 2023.

This agreement marks another important milestone for BASF to successfully conclude the needed deals enabling the 100% renewable electricity supply for the Zhanjiang Verbund site. It is also another successful Sino-German low-carbon initiative following the Letter of Intent (LOI) signed by BASF and China National Development and Reform Commission (NDRC) in June 2023.

“BASF is committed to achieving net zero carbon emissions by 2050 globally. The long-term partnership with GEDI represents another concrete step towards our ambitious climate targets,” said Marko Murtonen, Senior Vice President, New Verbund Site China, BASF & General Manager, BASF Integrated Site (Guangdong) Co. Ltd. “We are dedicated to building our Zhanjiang Verbund site as a lighthouse project for low carbon and sustainable development in the global chemical industry. Together with GEDI, we will have a great opportunity to foster more low carbon initiatives and renewable energy projects to further contribute to Guangdong’s ‘new quality productive force’.”

Alongside the PPA, BASF and GEDI are also exploring further collaboration in the low carbon sector.

Background information on BASF’s new Verbund site in Zhanjiang

The Zhanjiang Verbund site will be BASF’s largest investment to date with around €10 billion upon completion. It will be operated under the sole responsibility of BASF and will be the company’s third-largest Verbund site worldwide, following Ludwigshafen, Germany, and Antwerp, Belgium.

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South Korea's LG Chem Ltd. has decided to recycle waste vinyl generated in Ansan, Gyeonggi Province, into plastic raw materials, said Kedglobal.

The company announced on Wednesday that it signed a memorandum of understanding (MOU) for the recycling of waste vinyl and the establishment of a circular economy with Ansan City on the day before.

LG Chem and Ansan City agreed on the need to establish a system for the circulation of plastic resources and to jointly promote a project to transform waste vinyl generated in Ansan into clean resources.

Waste vinyl accounts for 15,000 tons of household waste in Ansan annually, with the annual volume increasing.

Through this agreement, Ansan City will provide some of the waste vinyl generated in the area to LG Chem's pyrolysis oil (or thermally decomposed oil) factory, scheduled to start operating in Dangjin, South Chungcheong Province this year.

The plant is a facility that extracts plastic raw materials from waste vinyl through chemical recycling.

LG Chem plans to produce various eco-friendly products using the waste vinyl from Ansan City.

We remind, Seoul Neste said it is teaming up with Lotte Chemical to replace fossil resources with renewable raw materials in the manufacturing of chemicals and plastics. As part of the collaboration, Neste will supply its re-newable Neste RE raw material to Lotte's sites in South Korea for the production of various types of plastics and chemicals with a lower carbon footprint.

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South Korea's SK Geo Centric Co. and Youlchon Chemical Co. announced on Sunday that they signed a memorandum of understanding (MOU) to co-develop recyclable plastic packaging materials, said Kedglobal.

The two companies share their know-how for cooperating on eco-friendly, high-performance packaging materials and collaborate for the new products.

SK Geo Centric, a subsidiary of SK Innovation, is involved in plastic recycling. Youlchon Chemical, a packaging material specialist under the Nongshim Group, manufactures food packaging materials.

"In South Korea alone, 360,000 tons of flexible packaging materials are used annually and most are difficult to recycle and end up incinerated or landfilled," an SK Geo Centric source said. "Developing single-material plastics that effectively protect products would significantly contribute to a more active resource circulation system."

We remind, SK Geo Centric Co. is using recycled materials for product packaging as it aims to transform itself into a green petrochemical producer by introducing eco-friendly processes throughout the production chain.

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ExxonMobil Chemical France has announced plans to close its chemical production at Gravenchon, in Normandy in France in 2024, subject to the relevant government approvals said the company.

According to a press release, the steamcracker and related derivatives units and logistics facilities will be shut down. The company said the site has lost more than EUR500 million since 2018 and despite efforts to improve the site’s economics, it remains uncompetitive.

The cracker has the capacity to produce 425,000 tonnes/year of ethylene and 290,000 tonnes/year of propylene and was started up in 1967.

A butadiene (BD) unit is also at the site and associated derivatives include polyethylene (PE), polypropylene (PP).

ExxonMobil’s nearby Port Jerome refinery will continue to operate supplying fuels, lubricants, basestocks and asphalt.

The closure will impact 677 jobs through 2025.

ExxonMobil said this planned closure is entirely separate from the Esso S.A.F. announcement regarding its proposed sale of the Esso Fos-sur-Mer refinery and South France logistics assets.

We remind, Rhone Energies, a consortium of commodity trader Trafigura and Entara LLC, is in exclusive negotiations with Exxon Mobil's ESSO SAF, opens new tab to acquire the Fos-sur-Mer refinery in southern France and the Toulouse and Villette de Vienne terminals. Trafigura said it would enter into a minimum 10-year exclusive crude oil supply and product offtake agreement, including ownership of crude oil and product stocks in tank.


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The latest survey suggests more South Korean manufacturing companies have a positive economic forecast in the second quarter of 2024, said Pulsenews.

According to the survey conducted by the Korea Institute for Industrial Economics & Trade, there was a notable uptick in optimism among manufacturers for economic activity in the second half of 2024. The Business Survey Index (BSI), an aggregation of confidence indices to grasp future landscapes for manufacturing firms, stood at 100 and 102 on business conditions and sales respectively, and were at their highest levels in two years since the second quarter of 2022.

The index between 100 and 200 means companies with positive economic outlooks outnumber those without.

The outlook for the second quarter of 2024 demonstrates a significant surge compared to the previous quarter, with business conditions climbing by 10 points from 90 to 100 and sales rising by 8 points. All key components, including domestic demand and exports, saw increases quarter-over-quarter.

We remind, Russian oil producer Lukoil expects its damaged CDU-6 primary unit and catalytic cracker at the NORSI oil refinery to return to operations in the second quarter following seasonal maintenance. The source also said that the damaged CDU-5 unit at the Volgograd refinery was put back into work on Feb. 21 and was now working in line with its designed capacity.

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