Weekend downstream news catch up: 1 September 2014

China

Titan Petrochemicals has said it is now back in the black after selling 10 of its subsidiaries. The fuel logistics company is controlled by Guangdong Zhenrong Energy and has been reportedly struggling with debt for years. The company managed to earn HK$ 4.14 billion through the disposal of assets, this meant that the company posted a pretax profit of HK$ 3.77 for the first half of 2014, compared to a pretax loss of HK$ 5.02 for the same time in 2013.

Finland

Diesel output at the Porvoo refinery near Helsinki is being impacted by maintenance work that is currently underway at the plant. The hydrogen production unit was discovered as in need of repair in mid August and has been offline since then. The work is expected to be completed by the end of next month and the diesel producing Production Line 4 is then expected to be back up and running as usual. The impact of the unit’s downtime is expected to result in a US$ 79 million impact on Neste Oil Corp’s operating profit.

India

Reliance Industries Ltd is expected to invest US$ 13 billion in energy projects, according to a recently released set of documents. Included in this investment is the construction of a 400 000 bpd refinery in Jamnagar. It is reported that the refinery, if built, would process mainly cheap, heavy crudes from Asia.

Iran

Tehran is going to seek to increase the supply of low benzene fuel in to the city in the hope that levels of air pollution will decrease. The Department of Energy has announced that it will vastly increase the volume of less than 1% benzene in the city to make big steps towards decreasing pollution levels.

In the first four months of the Iranian year, the petrochemicals industry in the country boosted exports by approximately 4% according to officials. This is in comparison with the same period last year and despite sanctions that are in place on the country. Petrochemical production in the country is also due to be boosted in the near future.

Malaysia

PRPC Refinery and Cracker Sdn. Bhd has awarded Toyo Engineering Corporation a contract. The contract is for a steam cracker complex project at the facility. The unit will be part of the new RAPID project in Johor. Completion is scheduled for the middle of 2019.

USA

Following the fire at the BP owned Whiting refinery last week, it has been reported that operations at the facility are continuing. The fire which resulted in one casualty has apparently had little impact on operations at the plant which has a processing capacity over 400 000 bpd. The Whiting refinery is the biggest US refinery outside of the Gulf Coast.

On Friday last week, a legislation was passed by California lawmakers which will force any railroad company that is moving crude oil via rail through the state to inform the emergency services. The Office of Emergency Services will have to be informed when crude oil trains are passing through the state from Canada and North Dakota to refineries in the southern part of the US. The law has been sought following a fatal crash in Canada last year.

Sources: South China Morning Post, Sudan Vision, The Economic Times, OGJ, Fars News Agency, Reuters, Fibre2Fashion.

Edited from various sources by Claira Lloyd

Read the article online at: https://www.hydrocarbonengineering.com/gas-processing/01092014/global-weekend-oil-petchem-news-roundup/