Chexpress - July 9, 2014

North America

Acquisition

    

Renewable Energy Group has completed the acquisition of Dynamic Fuels, Inc., one of the first renewable diesel biorefineries in the U.S. The Dynamic Fuels facility in Geismar, Louisiana has a 75 million gallon annual production capacity. This was part of a two-part deal. First, Renewable Energy Group acquired most of the assets of Syntroleum Corporation, which included a 50 percent ownership interest in Dynamic Fuels. Shortly after this acquisition in early June, Renewable Energy Group paid $18 million in cash to Tyson Foods for the remaining 50 percent interest.

Capacity

    

Chevron Phillips Chemical Company LP has received Board of Directors approval and obtained the necessary environmental permit from the Texas Commission of Environmental Quality (TCEQ) to expand normal alpha olefins (NAO) production capacity at its Cedar Bayou plant in Baytown, Texas. This investment will provide an additional 100,000 metric tons/year of capacity. Construction is expected to be completed in July 2015.  

Production issue

Oxea Corporation has encountered a significant production issue at its Bay City, Texas facility. Due to a malfunction in the production process, the company has been unable to resume full production. As a result, Oxea made a declaration of force majeure, effective for a number of the company’s products (n/I Butanol, n/I Butyl Acetate, n-Propanol and n-Propyl Acetate). Customer orders are being carefully monitored in an attempt to keep delays to a minimum.

World

Gas study

Sasol is considering a gas-to-liquids plant in Mozambique with Eni SpA and Mozambique’s oil company. The joint pre-feasibility study will assess the viability of such a plant in the region.  Eni has found about 75 trillion cubic feet of gas offshore Mozambique in Area 4 of the Rovuma Basin. It is too early to determine how long the study will take or the cost of such a plant.

New facility

Afton Chemical Corporation will     expand its global supply network with the addition of a new chemical additive manufacturing facility on Jurong Isalnd, Singapore. The plant will start to produce components in January 2016 to support the next generation of additive solutions. Foster Wheeler Singapore will manage the engineering and construction.

MDI plant

BASF, Huntsman, Shanghai Hua Yi (Group) Company, Shanghai Chlor-Alkali Chemical Co. Ltd. and SINOPEC Group Assets Management Corporation have kicked off the construction of a new plant in Caojing, China. The plant will have an annual production capacity of 240,000 metric tons of crude MDI (diphenylmethane diisocyanate). In addition, the partners plan to build a HCl (hydrogen chloride) recycling plant for the production of chlorine. The facility is expected to start up in 2017. The project is subject to further approvals by the Chinese Ministry of Commerce.

IChemE accreditation

PETRONAS has become the first organization in Malaysia to receive accreditation for its company training scheme by the Institution of Chemical Engineers (IChemE). The company currently employs more than 30,000 employees globally, including 3,500 chemical engineers. It plans to grow rapidly over the next few years and expects it will need additional chemical engineers to support is expansion.

Funding

Saudi Arabian Mining Co. (Ma’aden) has signed a $5 billion financing deal with commercial banks and a state-owned investment fund to back its $7.5 billion phosphate production project in Waad al-Shimal, Saudi Arabia. The project is a joint venture between Ma’aden, Saudi Basic Industries Corp. and Mosaic. The loan agreement will last for 16.5 years and repayments will be made on a semi-annual basis from Dec. 31, 2018. The scheme will have a production capacity of 16 million tons/year of phosphate concentrate, sulfuric acid, phosphoric acid, as well as plants to produce calcium monophosphate and calcium diphosphate. Phosphate production is expected to start in late 2016.