Ineos pushes ahead with Antwerp cracker project

Ineos Group Ltd.’s €4 billion Project One ethane cracker investment at Antwerp, Belgium is moving ahead after a delay caused by the suspension of the cracker’s environmental permit following a campaign by environmentalists over the alleged impact of nitrogen emissions.

“Since Ineos regained a permit for Project One in early January 2024, after it got annulled in July 2023, works on the construction site in Antwerp have been in full swing after a five-month standstill,” John McNally, CEO of Project One, told CW in an interview ahead of the European Petrochemical Association (EPCA) Annual Meeting, which takes place in Berlin Oct. 7-10. McNally is also an EPCA board member.

“At this stage, we have surpassed the mark of 1,300 people working simultaneously on our site in Antwerp,” McNally said. “In the first half of this year the focus was on underground and civil engineering works such as foundation works, concrete pouring, laying underground pipes, roads, substations and utilities.”

One key piece of infrastructure has been erected since May — the ethane tank, which McNally calls “the logistics heart of Project One.” With a capacity of 197,000 cubic meters, it is the largest cryogenic tank in Europe, he said.

“After the summer, the site will go really vertical, when the shipped modules will come in, which have been built in multiple overseas yards,” McNally said. “These works have not been impacted by the permit annulment in Antwerp.” The modules include pipe racks, cracking furnaces and process units weighing up to 10,000 metric tons. “At our nearby Lillo site, we are getting everything ready for the reception and construction of these modules,” he added. “The quay wall and the offloading platform, for example, have now been finalized.”

Ineos still aims to go live with the 1.45 million metric tons per year ethylene plant at the end of 2026, McNally said.

But the permitting difficulties have made it “a very challenging journey” since Ineos announced the Project One investment in January 2019 — the first new cracker to be built in Europe for 25 years — McNally said. “We have written a permit application totalling 5,176 pages to get to build Project One,” he said. “When our permit was annulled, it took six months and another 832 pages to recover the permit, in the form of detailed environmental research to demonstrate that our negligible deposition of nitrogen does not have a significant impact on nature reserves. We are now five years later and naturally our permit and legal team is making every effort to ensure maximum legal certainty for the project.”

In July 2024, the Flemish Minister of Environment withdrew the January decision to restore the original permit and issued a new environmental permit for Project One. The new permit also refers to Flanders’ Nitrogen Decree, providing for limits on nitrogen emissions, which came into force at the end of February. “This way legal certainty is increased,” McNally said. “For megaprojects like ours it is extremely difficult to be exposed to this kind of legal uncertainty.”

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U.S. crude oil inventories rose last week as refinery utilization rates fell amid weakening fuel demand, data from the U.S. Energy Information Administration (EIA) showed, as per Hydrocarbonprocessing.

Crude inventories rose by 3.9 MMbbl to 417 MMbbl in the week ended Sept. 27, the EIA said, compared with analysts' expectations in a Reuters poll for a 1.3- MMbbl draw. Crude stocks at the Cushing, Oklahoma, delivery hub rose by 840,000 bbl.

"As we descend into seasonal refinery maintenance, a chunky drop in refining activity has ushered in a build to crude inventories,” said Matt Smith, analyst at ship tracking firm Kpler. Global Brent and U.S. crude futures pared gains following the report to up a little over 2%. They had been up by 3% earlier in the day.

Refinery crude runs fell by 662,000 bpd, while refinery utilization rates fell by 3.3% in the week to 87.6%, the EIA said. Many refiners begin seasonal maintenance after the summer driving season ends.

"It's a big pullback in the refinery utilization rate. Right there is the vast majority of your build," said Bob Yawger, director of oil futures at Mizuho in New York. "Those barrels get stuffed into storage," he added.

Meanwhile, U.S. gasoline stocks rose by 1.1 MMbbl in the week to 221 MMbbl, the EIA said, compared with analysts' expectations for a 67,000-bbl draw.

Gasoline product supplied, a proxy for demand, fell on the week to 8.5 MMbpd, down from 9.2 MMbpd. Meanwhile distillates supplied fell 3.6 MMbpd, from 4 MMbpd last week.

“The bottom just fell out of summer gasoline demand, and there was a decent sized drop in distillate fuel demand too,” said John Kilduff, partner at Again Capital?

Distillate stockpiles, which include diesel and heating oil, fell by 1.3 MMbbl in the week to 122 MMbbl, compared with analysts' expectations for a 1.54-MMbbl draw. Net U.S. crude imports rose last week by 191,000 bpd, the EIA said.

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Singapore's middle distillates inventories rebounded to a three-week high after falling for three consecutive weeks, official data showed on Thursday, as per Hydrocarbonprocessing.

Stockpiles of diesel/gasoil and jet fuel/kerosene at key oil storage hub Singapore were at 10.742 MMbbl for the week ended Oct. 2, up from 9.807 MMbbl in the previous week, data from Enterprise Singapore showed. Net exports of diesel/gasoil surged by 18 times this week, as total exports grew by more than four times from the previous week.

Usual regional suspects such as Indonesia, Australia and Malaysia were the top contributors, while shipments from China remained absent. China's diesel exports are expected to stay thin going forward, largely due to refinery run cuts because of the persistently weak price environment, in addition to some refinery turnarounds, LSEG Oil Research said in a report.

The country's bulk of exports will comprise mainly of jet-kero flows due to continued growth in the aviation sector and more attractive export margins, while refiners could also push out more gasoline supplies as export economics improve, LSEG added.

Meanwhile, total diesel/gasoil imports increased more than 100% week-on-week, with the bulk of volumes headed to Saudi Arabia.

Arabian Gulf and West Coast Indian diesel cargoes "continue to flow eastwards," as freight rates for Middle Eastern tankers heading to Europe have increased and for East-bound shipments decreased, said Sparta Commodities analyst James Noel-Beswick.

On the jet fuel/kerosene front, net exports dropped nearly 80% week-on-week, as total imports fell at a faster pace than total exports.

Total imports of the aviation fuel decreased nearly 100%, as volumes from Australia, China, Indonesia and Malaysia were absent, adding to the decline. Total exports fell about 84% week-on-week, with volumes from Australia nearly negligible.

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Borouge Plc., a leading petrochemical company known for its innovative and differentiated polyolefin solutions, today announced the signing of an AED20-MM ($5.45-MM) agreement with Union Pipes Industry (UPI), a leading UAE-based manufacturer, to supply UPI with 100% post-consumer recycled (PCR) polypropylene that will be used to produce customized pallets for Borouge’s logistics operations, as per Hydrocarbonprocessing.

Khalfan Mohamed AlMuhairi, SVP MEAE Borouge (right) and Qassim Abdulrahman Al Sharafi (left), Chairman of the Board of Directors of UPI, at the signing ceremony event.

Borouge serves customers in more than 50 countries across Asia, the Middle East and Africa, providing creative solutions for a wide range of industries that contribute to addressing global challenges and improving people’s everyday lives, such as climate change, food waste and scarcity, access to fresh water, energy transition, healthcare support and waste management.

Khalfan Mohamed AlMuhairi, SVP MEAE Borouge, said: “Borouge’s partnership with UPI demonstrates our commitment to leveraging innovation and technological solutions to enhance end-of-life recyclability and promote the use of recycled polypropylene across all the industries we serve. Recycling and sustainability are integral to Borouge’s long-term strategy. We continue to champion circular business models through national and global partnerships that are enhancing the quality and availability of recycled polyolefins.

As part of the agreement, Borouge will supply quality assured recyclates to UPI for the production of pallets using two of its partners, Qonexa and Intraco Pallet. The pallets are then used by Borouge to deliver the company’s innovative products to customers around the world. To support the circular economy, using recycled polypropylene-based plastics pallets, which in comparison to traditional pallets have a longer life span, by up to three times, and are safer and more hygienic, as plastic pallets are not susceptible to insect infestation and do not require fumigation.

Borouge is committed to exploring and driving opportunities that support a circular economy and delivering a more sustainable future. The company’s sustainability ambitions include its pledge to reach Net Zero carbon emissions for Scope 1 and 2 by 2045, Borouge has set interim 2030 goals of reducing greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions intensity by 25% and energy intensity by 30%.

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LBB Specialities LLC (LBBS; Norwalk, Connecticut) has announced a new partnership with SE Tylose USA (Plaquemine, Louisiana), for cellulose excipients in the pharma excipients and nutra ingredients markets. Effective Nov. 1, 2024, this collaboration will span LBBS' life sciences and food and nutrition verticals across the US, Canada, the Caribbean and Central America. SE Tylose USA is an affiliate of Shin-Etsu Chemical Co, as per Chemweek.

The partnership will encompass Shin-Etsu SE Tylose’s cellulose excipients, which are used in pharmaceutical and nutraceutical applications for their functionalities such as binding, thickening and controlled release properties.

“This partnership with SE Tylose complements our existing portfolio of active pharmaceutical ingredients (APIs) and value-added excipients for solid dose applications in pharmaceuticals,” said Seth Burns, senior VP of Life Sciences at LBBS.

Shin-Etsu SE Tylose, based in Wiesbaden, Germany, produces approximately 65,000 metric tons per year of cellulose ether. Its products are used in construction materials to pharmaceuticals and food ingredients. LBBS brings a regulatory team to support customer development and dedicated technical marketing resources for product formulation and trends consultation, added LBBS.

Shin-Etsu Chemical will invest about 83 billion yen (USD545 million) to build a plant in Gunma Prefecture, Japan, to produce semiconductor materials. It is the first time in 56 years that Shin-Etsu Chemical has built a new production base in Japan.

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