Neste to provide renewable feedstock to Singapore-based PCS

Neste Oyj (Espoo, Finland) announced it will supply Neste RE, a renewable material to produce chemicals and plastics, to PCS Pte. (Singapore), as per Chemweek.

Based on renewable wastes, such as used cooking oil, or residues from vegetable oil processing, Neste RE will serve as a replacement for fossil raw materials used at PCS facilities on Jurong Island.

Using Neste RE, PCS will produce products, including ethylene, propylene or butadiene, across its portfolio. Neste said these products will then be supplied to customers in various sectors across the region. First deliveries will include butadiene to Mitsubishi Corp., Toray Plastics (Malaysia) Sdn. Bhd. and Synthomer Sdn. Bhd., through which renewable solutions will make their way to end-user applications in the industry.

“While the products from these International Sustainability and Carbon Certification [ISCC] certified supply chains will be equal to their fossil counterparts in terms of quality, safety and performance, the use of renewable instead of fossil raw materials will reduce their carbon footprint,” Neste said.

“With this partnership, we are establishing one of the first ISCC-certified renewable value chains for butadiene in the region,” said Hisashi Shibayama, managing director at PCS.

PCS produces ethylene, propylene, acetylene, butadiene, 1-butene, methyl tert-butyl ether, benzene, toluene and xylene. PCS is a 50/50 joint venture between Japan-Singapore Petrochemicals Co. Ltd. and Qatar Petroleum International & Shell Petrochemicals (Singapore) Pte. Ltd.

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The State Oil Company of the Azerbaijan Republic (SOCAR), the United Arab Emirates (UAE)'s Masdar, and Saudi Arabia's ACWA Power signed a memorandum of understanding on cooperation in the production of wind power in the Azerbaijani sector of the Caspian Sea, as per Interfax.

"The first offshore wind power plants are planned to be built in Azerbaijan as part of the joint project," SOCAR said.

A total of 3.5 GW in capacity is expected.

SOCAR said that President Rovshan Najaf, Masdar CEO Mohammed Jamil Al-Ramahi, and ACWA Power CEO Marco Arcelli signed the memorandum.

"This document serves to expand the partnership between the parties to implement renewable energy projects with overall capacity of 500 MW in Nakhchivan," according to the press release.

We remind, the State Oil Company of Azerbaijan (Socar) and Tatneft may create a joint venture for the production of lubricants.

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PJSC Lukoil plans to commission a gas chemical complex (GCC) and a gas processing unit (GPU-2) at its Stavrolen facility, a 100% subsidiary of Lukoil in Budyonnovsk, Stavropol region, by 2029, Stavrolen First Deputy CEO Alexei Prokopenko said, as per Interfax.

"The projects [the GCC and GPU-2] are synchronized [for commissioning] by 2029, and are currently in the active phase," Prokopenko said during the Reassessment of the North Caucasus Federal District: Boom in Tourism and Growth Reserves business conference in Pyatigorsk on Friday.

He explained that the construction of GPU-2, which will process around 5 billion cubic meters of gas per year, is underway as part of the development of the Northern Caspian field. "As a result, a large resource of dry benzene gas, natural gas or methane, will become available, and we are actively designing and preparing for the construction of the gas chemical complex," he said.

The GCC project, construction of which is set to begin in 2026, will involve setting up new nitrogen fertilizer production facilities, including ammonia and carbamide.

"This complex the GCC will be the largest single facility in the world. The investment in the project will exceed 160 billion rubles. We are currently at the design and surveying stage," he said.

The raw material base for the complex will be the GPU-2, with the construction project estimated to cost over 50 billion rubles, he said.

Work on both the GCC and GPU-2 is proceeding simultaneously because "one cannot exist without the other; without production, there will be no consumption," he said.

The company plans to invest 24.5 billion rubles in non-commercial investment projects from 2024 to 2029, which includes modernizing existing production facilities, Prokopenko said in his presentation. A total of 9.6 billion rubles will be allocated for technically re-equipping pyrolysis furnaces and 1 billion rubles for environmental projects.

Lukoil's press service said in August 2024 that the company had laid the first stone for the construction of the gas chemical complex at the Stavrolen plant. The complex will include the production of in-demand mineral fertilizers, including carbamide and ammonia. Production of carbamide is expected to reach approximately 1.75 million tonnes per year, the Stavropol regional authorities said.

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SIBUR has begun constructing an industrial-scale n-butyllithium production facility at the Voronezhsynthezkauchuk site, the company's press service said, as per Interfax.

N-butyllithium is used as a catalyst in the production of thermoplastic elastomers and synthetic rubbers.

The facility will have a production capacity of 350 tonnes per year, with construction expected to be completed in 2026. The amount of investment for the project was not disclosed, but is said to be in the range of several billion rubles.

Currently, n-butyllithium is not produced in Russia. It was primarily imported from European countries and the United States, while current supplies come from the Asia-Pacific region. The launch of domestic production aims to mitigate risks associated with complex logistics chains, the lack of licensors, and the general availability of this specialized component.

As reported, SIBUR Innovations, the company's research and development center, has developed the production technology for n-butyllithium that will be used at the facility.

"This technology is the most reliable, efficient, and safe among all known domestic and international n-butyllithium production methods, as it uses half the amount of equipment and fewer production stages while delivering a component with properties on a par with the best foreign analogs. Trial batches of domestically produced n-butyllithium have undergone successful testing at production sites in Voronezh and Nizhnekamsk," the company said.

Rubbers and styrene-butadiene-styrene polymers made using n-butyllithium exhibit enhanced abrasion resistance, flexibility and recovery after deformation. Synthetic rubber-based materials are widely used in road construction, footwear, and tire manufacturing. N-butyllithium is also a valuable component in the organic synthesis of active pharmaceutical ingredients and is used in the production of chemicals for the agricultural sector and electronics.

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FESCO Transportation Group, the flagship of which is the Far Eastern Shipping Company (FESCO) , plans to develop sea container shipments between Russian and Chinese ports, group president Pyotr Ivanov said at the Russian-Chinese forum in Kazan, as per Interfax.

"Among our upcoming plans, we will launch an updated sea service from Chinese ports to Novorossiysk, FESCO Black Sea Service, and we plan to expand our flagship FESCO China Express Line service by the end of the year by launching a fourth [container] line which will allow us to increase [total service capacity] by 15%," he said.

"FESCO's total container turnover between Russia and China in nine months was 280,000 TEU twenty-foot equivalent units. We don't think that's the limit, and it will undoubtedly grow," he said.

Container turnover between Russia and China reached 3.1 million TEU in 2023, and is projected to grow 16% in 2024, Ivanov said.

FESCO, which is under the Rosatom state corporation's control, owns assets in the port, railway and integrated logistics business. FESCO owns PJSC Commercial Port of Vladivostok , the Fesco Integrated Transport intermodal operator, the Dalreftrans refrigerated container operator, as well as the Transgarant and Fesco Trans companies.

The group manages terminal complexes in Novosibirsk, Khabarovsk, Tomsk and Vladivostok. It oversees a container fleet of more than 180,000 TEUs and nearly 15,000 flatcars. Its fleet includes over 30 vessels which primarily operate on its own shipping lines. In November 2023, a 92.5% controlling stake in DVMP was transferred to Rosatom by presidential decree.

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