Mid June downstream news update

Africa

Kenya

UK based Standard Chartered Bank, which had signed a US$ 350 million financing arrangement with Essar Energy’s Kenya Petroleum Refineries Ltd (KPRL), has threatened to suspend this arrangement due to rising defaults by KPRL.

Europe

Ireland

Phillips 66 is to sell its business in Ireland, including the 71 000 bpd refinery in Cork. The company has retained Deutsche Bank to market its Ireland assets.

Middle East

Iraq

Japan has offered its largest ever loan to Iraq of about 120 billion yen (US$ 1.24 billion) to build a new refinery and rebuild a port.

Japan will initially lend 82.7 billion yen to build a refinery to extract natural gas liquids in southern Iraq’s Rumala oil field. A second loan of 39.2 billion yen will be provided to rebuild the southern port of Khor Al-Zubair.

Qatar

Siemens Energy is to supply a wet air oxidation ethylene spent caustic treatment system for Qatar Petrochemical Company’s (QAPCO) ethylene plant expansion. The facility is expected to be operational by December 2013.

USA

Delaware

A break down in a pollution control unit at a major Delaware city refinery unit sent dark smoke billowing from a stack at its plant yesterday, triggering complaints from nearby residents and forcing the plant to start a back up pollution control system.

State officials have said that regular operations will resume by Friday.

Edited from various sources by Emma McAleavey

Read the article online at: https://www.hydrocarbonengineering.com/gas-processing/12062013/mid_june_downstream_news_update_426/