Technip Energies selected by Viridor to perform FEED on the Runcorn energy-from-waste carbon capture project in the UK

Technip Energies has been awarded a FEED contract by Viridor for the CCS project at one of the United Kingdom’s largest Energy-from-Waste facilities in Runcorn, United Kingdom, as per Hydrocarbonprocessing.

The project aims to capture around 900,000 tons of CO2 each year, half of which will be from biogenic sources, effectively removing 450,000 tons of CO2 annually from the atmosphere.

As part of the FEED study, Technip Energies will deliver a comprehensive design utilizing the Canopy by T.EN™ solution powered by Shell CANSOLV CO2 capture technology. The Canopy offering is part of Capture.Now™, Technip Energies’ strategic Carbon Capture, Utilization and Storage (CCUS) platform of technologies and solutions.

The Runcorn CCS project is in line to be one of the first facilities to receive funding under the UK Government’s Track 1 funding for carbon capture projects, also making it one of the first carbon capture projects on an Energy-from-Waste facility in the world. It marks a significant milestone in the waste sector's contribution to carbon reduction efforts.

The plant will play a crucial role in the regional decarbonization strategy by providing a stable long-term baseload CO2 supply to the HyNet industrial carbon capture cluster in Northwest England.

We remind, Technip Energies and Anellotech, Inc. announced they have signed a global joint development agreement to work cooperatively to further develop and then license Anellotech’s Plas-TCat process, a one-step thermal-catalytic recycling technology that converts mixed plastic wastes back into its constituent basic chemicals, with a specific focus to benzene, toluene, and xylene (BTX) that can be used to make most virgin plastics.

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Kazakhstan manufactured 33,021 motor vehicles in Q1 2024, a 4% increase from the previous year, the Kazakhstan Automobile Union said, as per Interfax.

The value of the vehicles produced reached 420.9 billion tenge during the period, up 14.1% from the year before. The automotive sector represented 43% of the mechanical engineering industry's output.

Passenger car production reached 30,696 cars in Q1, a 6.7% increase YoY. Production of trucks decreased 42.3% to 1,356 units, while buses surged 58.6% to 633 units. Production of other vehicle types during the period included 206 trailers and semi-trailers, as well as 130 units of special equipment.

The Kostanay Allur plant produced 20,772 units (up by 13.5%) in Q1, while Almaty Hyundai Trans Kazakhstan manufactured 10,026 units (down 12.9%). Semaz in Semey saw a 12.6% increase, producing 1,070 commercial vehicles. QazTehna in Karaganda region manufactured 335 units of equipment, a 34% increase. Kamaz-Engineering in Kokshetau produced 247 commercial vehicles, a 7.5% decrease. Uralskagroremmash in Uralsk produced 23 units of equipment.

The top five most popular makes in Q1 2024 (including exports) were Hyundai (9,934), Chevrolet (7,249), Kia (6,278), Jac (4,273), and Jetour (2,779). In terms of models, Chevrolet Cobalt took the lead with 6,321 vehicles, followed closely by Hyundai Tucson at 5,928 units produced. Kia Sportage followed with 2,539, while Jetour X70 and Jac J7 also performed well, reaching 2,406 and 2,273 cars, respectively.

The Kazakhstan Automobile Union is a non-profit organization established in Astana on July 21, 2023, which includes the Association of Automobile Manufacturers, the Association of Automotive Component Manufacturers, the Association of Public Transport, the Association of Importers, the Association of Dealers, the Association for the Sale of Used Cars, and the Association of Auto Experts and Auditors.

We remind, the deal for Sibur to enter the Kazakhstan Petrochemical Industries (KPI) Inc. polypropylene production project in the Atyrau region in western Kazakhstan has closed. The agreement to sell a 40% stake in Kazakhstan Petrochemical Industries to Sibur was signed in November 2022.

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China’s Ministry of Commerce yesterday announced that polycarbonate imported from Taiwan would be subject to anti-dumping duties starting 20 April for a period of five years, said Taipeitimes.

In a statement, the ministry confirmed its final determination on anti-dumping measures for imported polycarbonate originating from Taiwan. Based on its investigation, the ministry concluded that dumping practices were causing harm to China’s polycarbonate industry.

According to Taiwan’s Customs Administration data, exports of polycarbonate to China last year amounted to about US$830 million, making it the largest market for Taiwan’s polycarbonate exports, accounting for about 78.5 percent of the total.

Polycarbonate was included as an item in the “early harvest” list of the Economic Cooperation Framework Agreement (ECFA) between Taiwan and China signed in 2010.

Academics have suggested the decision to impose anti-dumping duties on polycarbonate, a material used in various sectors including electronics, automotive, optics, packaging, medical devices and safety equipment, is part of China’s response to broader geopolitical tensions and pressures.

The anti-dumping investigation into imported polycarbonate from Taiwan was initiated by the Chinese Ministry of Commerce in November 2022, with preliminary findings released in August last year confirming dumping practices and substantial harm to China’s polycarbonate industry.

The interim anti-dumping duties imposed on Taiwanese polycarbonate were as high as 22.4 percent. However, the investigation, originally scheduled to conclude on May 29, saw its final determination announced yesterday ahead of the inauguration of president-elect William Lai on May 20.

The announcement also outlined specific anti-dumping duties for Taiwanese companies, including Taiwan Chemical Fiber Corp (9 percent), Idemitsu Chemicals Taiwan Corp (9 percent), Chimei Corp (12.2 percent), Chi Lin Technology Co, Ltd (12.2 percent) and other Taiwanese entities (22.4 percent).

Taiwan’s Executive Yuan spokesman Lin Tzu-lun said yesterday that China’s actions contribute nothing to normalizing cross-strait trade and are unfair toward Taiwanese businesses.

Lin urged China not to politically manipulate trade and to allow cross-strait commerce to return to international norms.

We remind, Russia's PC exports decreased in 2023, but they are higher than in 2021. The two largest markets were Turkiye and China. Russia left European markets and reduced supplies to Israel (by 2 times).

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Neste has successfully conducted its first processing trial run with a new challenging raw material, liquefied discarded tires. In the processing run, Neste produced high-quality raw material for new plastics and chemicals, as per Hydrocarbonprocessing.

For the processing run, Neste sourced pyrolysis oil derived from discarded vehicle tires by Scandinavian Enviro Systems, a Swedish company developing technologies to recover materials from end-of-life products. The goal of Neste’s pilot run was to evaluate the potential of chemical recycling beyond plastic waste to potentially broaden the pool of waste streams that could be processed into high-quality products.

Just as with hard-to-recycle plastic waste, a large amount of tires today ends up in landfills or incineration at the end of their life cycle. The composition of tires as a mix of several materials makes them difficult to recycle with mechanical recycling methods. Hence, there is a strong case for using chemical recycling to help keep valuable materials in circulation – and Scandinavian Enviro Systems has developed a pyrolysis technology for extracting carbon black and oil from end-of-life tires.

“The beauty of chemical recycling is that it can process hard-to-recycle plastic waste. But it’s not limited to that,” explains Andreas Teir, who is in charge of Neste’s raw materials supply for chemical recycling. “With discarded tires currently often facing a fate similar to plastic waste, we consider chemical recycling a valid addition when it comes to changing the linear life cycle of tires into a circular one. Thanks to our supplier Enviro Systems, we were able to prove that with our recent processing run.”

In the past, Neste has already successfully concluded several processing runs with liquefied waste plastic. These runs built the basis for Neste’s decision to invest into large-scale capacities for chemical recycling at the company’s site in Porvoo, Finland. The facilities being built are expected to be finished in the course of 2025 and will be able to process 150,000 tons of liquefied waste plastic per year. They are part of project PULSE, which is funded by the European Union through the EU Innovation Fund.

We remind, Technip Energies and Anellotech, Inc. announced they have signed a global joint development agreement to work cooperatively to further develop and then license Anellotech’s Plas-TCat process, a one-step thermal-catalytic recycling technology that converts mixed plastic wastes back into its constituent basic chemicals, with a specific focus to benzene, toluene, and xylene (BTX) that can be used to make most virgin plastics.

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Biofuels refiner Ecoceres is aiming to start up its Malaysia-based biofuels production unit in the second half of 2025, said Hydrocarbonprocessing.

The unit will have a total capacity of 350,000 metric tons per year of biofuels, which consists of 220,000 tpy of sustainable aviation fuel and 130,000 tpy of hydrotreated vegetable oil, its chief commercial officer Jeremy Baines said at an Argus biofuels conference in Singapore.

Used cooking oil and palm oil mill effluent will be among the key feedstocks for the plant, located in Malaysia's Johor region, he added, without elaborating where they will source the products from.

The Bain-backed biofuels producer, which currently operates a 260,000-tpy biofuels unit in Jiangsu, China, earlier signed an agreement with a waste management firm backed by the Chinese city of Shenzhen to source for biofuel feedstocks.

We remind, Technip Energies and Anellotech, Inc. announced they have signed a global joint development agreement to work cooperatively to further develop and then license Anellotech’s Plas-TCat process, a one-step thermal-catalytic recycling technology that converts mixed plastic wastes back into its constituent basic chemicals, with a specific focus to benzene, toluene, and xylene (BTX) that can be used to make most virgin plastics.

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