DATE : 2014-06-09
US producer TPC Group has lifted its force majeure on butadiene (BD) from its Houston plant in Texas, effective on 6 June, a company source confirmed on Monday.
TPC had declared the force majeure in early April because of production issues.
Earlier this month, the company raised its allocation of BD to 100%.
TPC's plant in Houston has a capacity of 430,000 tonnes/year, according to ICIS plants and projects.
SOURCE Icis News
DATE : 2014-06-07
Major events of acrylic acid and esters sector in 2013
Major events and market changes of the acrylic acid and esters sector in China and abroad in 2013 include: (1) Taixing Jurong Chemical Co., Ltd.’s new 160 kt/a acrylic acid project was put into operation; (2) Yip's Chemical Holdings Limited constructed a new 80 kt/a butyl acrylate project; (3) BASF announced the suspension of its units due to equipment accident; (4) an explosion happened in Shanghai Huayi Acrylic Acid Co., Ltd.; (5) in July, Saudi Acrylic Monomer Company started up its new 160 kt/a butyl acrylate unit in Al Jubayl of Saudi Arabia; (6) Nippon Shokubai was approved to fully resume the acrylic acid production line in Himeji of Japan; (7) Nippon Shokubai started up its new acrylic acid unit in Indonesia; (8) Shandong Qilu Petrochemical Kaitai Industry Co., Ltd. started up its new acrylic acid and esters project.
From the end of 2009 to 2010, Arkema, Dow and BASF suffered equipment accidents in succession. In September 2012, an explosion happened in Nippon Shokubai. In 2013, BASF’s units in Germany and Malaysia also suffered accidents. In June 2013, an explosion happened in Shanghai Huayi Acrylic Acid Co., Ltd. A series of events in recent years has once again proved that the global supply and demand is balanced by name only. Due to improper safety management (for example, raw material propylene is flammable and easy to explode during storage and transportation), aging of equipment and tight supply of raw materials propylene, unexpected shutdown has occurred frequently in recent years, while the demand from downstream coatings and diaper industries has maintained stable growth, easily resulting in the drastic price rise and increase of trade volume.
Acrylic acid
In 2012, price of acrylic acid in China was stabilized at around RMB12 000/t in the first several months, reduced to below RMB10 000/t in June, rebounded slowly after July and reached around RMB11 500/t in September; affected by the explosion that happened in Nippon Shokubai in September, the domestic price of acrylic acid rose rapidly until early November, and the highest price reached RMB16 200/t; in mid-December, the price dropped drastically to below RMB10 000/t, even lower than that before the explosion of Nippon Shokubai.
In the first half of 2013, the domestic price of acrylic acid fluctuated slightly and was basically stabilized at around RMB10 000/t. In early June 2013, it presented a rising trend. Affected by the explosion in Shanghai Huayi Acrylic Acid Co., Ltd., the price climbed rapidly to RMB13 500/t in July. Influenced by the constant supply shortages, the price of acrylic acid reached RMB14 900/t in October. It was RMB14 300/t at the end of 2013, up 43% year-on-year.
Affected by the slack demand for acrylic acid in the downstream sectors as well as the New Year's Day and Spring Festival, the price of acrylic acid decreased gradually in early 2014, and reduced to RMB10 500/t in early March. It rebounded to over RMB11 000/t in April.
Influenced by the factors like the accident of Shanghai Huayi Acrylic Acid Co., Ltd., the price rise of upstream raw material propylene as well as the lower operating rate of related enterprises, the price of acrylic acid began to climb drastically after July. and the price of acrylic acid continually maintained at a high level afterwards.
In 2013, the price fluctuation of acrylic acid was mainly affected by the explosion in Shanghai Huayi Acrylic Acid Co., Ltd. In the first half of 2013, the operating rate of acrylic acid units was relatively high and the market supply was adequate. However, due to the slight decrease of market demand, the price dropped slightly. After the accident, the price rise lasted around half a year. Besides, overhauls and lower operating rates in some enterprises further tightened the overall market supply. Even if the price of acrylic acid fell in 2014, the overall price is still at a high level, showing that acrylic acid is still a product with tight supply.
Butyl acrylate
The price fluctuation of acrylic acid has also affected prices of acrylic esters. Take butyl acrylate as an example. The price of butyl acrylate in China was around RMB12 000/t in June 2012; it rebounded slowly after July and reached around RMB14 500/t in September; influenced by the explosion in Nippon Shokubai, the price of butyl acrylate climbed rapidly and reached RMB16 650/t in October. The price began to fall in November and reduced to around RMB13 000/t in December. In the first half of 2013, the domestic price of butyl acrylate firstly increased and then fell, but the price fluctuation was smaller. The butyl acrylate price was around RMB12 800/t in May, being basically the same as that in early 2013. The price climbed slowly after July. It rose fast only during August-September, and climbed to around RMB15 800/t in October. The price dropped slowly afterwards and reduced to RMB15 500/t by the end of 2013, a rise of 21% in the whole year of 2013. Due to the slack demand for butyl acrylate in downstream sectors, the domestic price of butyl acrylate fell gradually in early 2014 and reduced to RMB12 300/t by the end of February 2014, being the lowest price level since July 2012. It then rebounded to RMB12 800/t afterwards.
Compared with acrylic acid, butyl acrylate had a quicker response to the price fluctuation and a lower volatility. This was also related to the weak demand for butyl acrylate in downstream sectors, such as coating and adhesive sectors. Currently, the price of butyl acrylate has dropped to a relatively low level since July 2012.
The overall profit of acrylic acid sector was considerable
In 2013, China’s acrylic acid and ester sector witnessed different degrees of growth in capacity and output. In 2013, China’s capacity, output, import volume and export volume of acrylic acid had a year-on-year growth of 9.5%, 12%, 9.4% and 92.8%, respectively, and the domestic capacity, output, import volume and export volume of acrylic esters witnessed a year-on-year growth of 3.7%, 3.5%, 1.7% and 7.4%, respectively. The growth of acrylic acid exceeded that of acrylic esters, mainly due to the growth of its downstream SAP (super-absorbent polymers) sector. The overall profit of acrylic acid sector was considerable in 2013.
The relaxation of China's Family Planning Policy is bound to usher in a new round of baby boom and promote the birth rate in short term and long term, offering new opportunities for disposable sanitary products, especially baby diapers. In addition, the development of high-efficiency agriculture and China’s desertification prevention will also bring new opportunities for SAP. The good development prospects of SAP has promoted the development of acrylic acid, the domestic demand for high-purity acrylic acid has grown rapidly, and the high-purity acrylic acid units need to be built to match with all newly constructed units.
Brisk project construction
Despite the vigorous development of China’s acrylic acid and ester,, the startup of some new projects being planned to be put into operation in 2013 will be postponed to 2014-2015. New acrylic acid and ester projects being built or planned for construction in China are listed in table 1.
China’s newly added capacity to make acrylic acid and esters will be more than 3.2 million t/a in the future, of which the newly added capacity to produce acrylic acid will reach over 1.6 million t/a, greatly promoted by the development of downstream SAP sector.
Capacity tends to be surplus
In recent years, in order to improve their industrial chains, China’s acrylic acid producers have vigorously developed new downstream products and gradually improved product chains. In addition, some enterprises from other sectors have been attracted to construct new acrylic acid and esters projects, showing the vitality of China’s acrylic acid and esters sector.
In recent years, capacity for acrylic acid and esters in China has tended to be surplus, constantly arousing industry insiders’ concerns. A large number of acrylic acid and esters projects that will also be completed and put into operation in 2004 will have great impacts on the market. At present, among the downstream sectors of acrylic acid and coatings sector show signs of slow development, while SAP and adhesive sectors are demonstrating a sound momentum of growth, especially the SAP sector that will still continue to grow rapidly in China under the support of favorable policies. Promoted by the fast-growing packaging sector, the adhesive sector has developed rapidly in recent years, also offering a strong support for the development of acrylic esters.
Table 1 China’s acrylic acid and esters projects being built or planned
Producer Capacity (kt/a) Location Start time Startup time (expected)
Yantai Wanhua Polyurethanes Co., Ltd. 300 AA +360 AE
Wanhua Yantai Industry Park 2012 2014 Under construction
Wanzhou Petrochemical (Jiangsu) Co., Ltd. 80 AA +80 AE
Nantong, Jiangsu province 2012 2014 Under construction
Zhejiang Satellite Petro Chemical Co., Ltd. 320 AA +300 AE
Dushan Port, Pinghu, Jiaxing, Zhejiang province 2012 2014 Under construction
Shandong Hongxin Chemical Co., Ltd. 160 AA +200 AE
Zhoucun, Zibo, Shandong province 2012 2014 Under construction
BASF-YPC Co., Ltd. 190 AA +100 AE
Nanjing, Jiangsu province 2010 2014 Under construction
Formosa Acrylic Esters (Ningbo) Co., Ltd. 160 AA +200 AE
Ningbo, Zhejiang province 2012 2014 Under construction
Jiangsu Sailboat Petrochemical Co., Ltd. 200 AA+AE
Xuwei New Area, Lianyungang, Jiangsu province - 2014-2015 Under construction
Shanghai Huayi New Materials Co., Ltd. 320 AA+AE
Shanghai Chemical Industry Park - 2014-2015 Planned
Shanghai Huayi Group 300 AA+AE
Wuwei, Anhui province - 2020 Planned
Remarks
On January 23, 2014, Arkema and Jiangsu Jurong Chemical Co., Ltd. announced the setup of a joint venture in which Arkema will hold a majority stake, comprising the assets of Taixing Jurong Chemical’s acrylic acid production site opened in 2012. The deal is expected to complete in 2014. At the initial stage of the joint venture establishment, Arkema will have access to half of the site’s installed capacity. Arkema will likely continue to make investment and have access 2/3 of the site’s acrylic acid installed capacity. Ever more, Arkema reserves the right to purchase the remaining 1/3 of the acrylic acid production capacities in five years.
Foreign-funded enterprises have valued the rapid growth of China’s acrylic acid market, and seized the opportunity to expand the business network in China’s high growth regions. In 2014, the competition in China’s acrylic acid and esters sector will be intensified, and local enterprises, foreign-funded enterprises, and joint ventures will compete in the whole industry chain. Players in this sector will think highly of the development of downstream sectors, and the breakthrough of downstream demand will promote the benign development of the acrylic acid and esters sector.
SOURCE CCR
DATE : 2014-06-04
A huge explosion and fire on 3 June at a Shell chemical plant at Moerdijk, Netherlands has injured two employees. An explosion occurred at about 11.00 pm local time at the MSPO-2 plant, which produces styrene monomer and propylene oxide, and it was followed by a fire, Shell says in a statement. The incident occurred while the installation was temporarily shut for routine maintenance, Shell says. “Relevant authorities and emergency services were alerted immediately. They arrived on location quickly to extinguish the fire,” Shell says. The fire was extinguished at about 6 am on 4 June. According to press reports the incident released toxic smoke across a wide area, but Shell says that no harmful emissions were released into the air. “Air quality tests were also carried out. The mayor of Moerdijk confirmed in a press conference late on 3 June, that no harmful concentrations of emissions were detected in the air,” Shell says.
“An investigation into the cause of the explosion has been initiated. Shell Moerdijk will work closely with government authorities.” Other facilities at the Shell Moerdijk site are currently operating normally.
SOURCE Chemweek Business Daily
DATE : 2014-06-04
Nippon Shokubai Indonesia plans to restart its crude acrylic acid (AA) and acrylate esters unit at Cilegon in West Java in end-June, a company source said on Wednesday.
The company operates a 60,000 tonne/year crude AA plant and a 100,000 tonne/year acrylate esters unit at the site. Both units were shut earlier in the previous week for scheduled maintenance.
The duration of the shutdown is expected to last for around a month, the source said.
SOURCE Icis News
DATE : 2014-06-04
Whip together an industrial waste product and a bit of plastic and you might have the recipe for the next revolution in battery technology. Scientists from the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST), the University of Arizona in Tucson and Seoul National University in Korea have combined common ingredients to make an inexpensive, high-capacity lithium-sulfur battery that can be cycled hundreds of times without losing function.*
The new battery’s performance would be competitive in today’s marketplace, says NIST materials scientist Christopher Soles. “Five hundred cycles with the capacity we’ve shown is definitely better than what’s in your laptop today.”
Batteries deliver power by shuttling positive ions between two electrodes—an anode and a cathode—while electrons travel around a circuit and do useful work. In the past decade, compact batteries using tiny lithium ions have achieved ever larger energy densities, packing more power in smaller volumes and helping to make smart phones and other mobile technologies ubiquitous. But lithium-ion batteries require bulky cathodes, typically made from ceramic oxides like cobalt oxide, to house the ions, which limits the battery’s energy density. This means that for more power-intensive applications like long-range electric vehicles, even lithium-ion technology does not cut it.
Enter lithium-ion’s slimmer cousin, lithium-sulfur. These batteries’ cathodes are made mainly of sulfur, a cheap waste product of petroleum processing. Sulfur weighs barely half as much as cobalt, atom for atom, and can pack more than twice as many lithium ions into a given volume as can cobalt oxide; thus, lithium-sulfur batteries have several times the energy density of lithium-ion batteries. But sulfur cathodes have two major weaknesses. Sulfur easily combines with lithium to form compounds that crystallize and gum up the battery’s insides, and it tends to crack under the stress of repeated cycling. As a result, a typical lithium-sulfur battery becomes useless within a few dozen cycles—far too few for a laptop or car battery that may get cycled once a day for years.
To create a more stable cathode, the research team heated sulfur to 185 degrees Celsius, melting the element’s eight-atom rings into long chains. They then mixed the sulfur chains with DIB,** a carbon-based plastic precursor that links the sulfur chains together, creating what is known as a co-polymer. The team dubbed their manufacturing process “inverse vulcanization” because it resembles the process used to make rubber tires, with one crucial difference: In tires, carbon-containing material makes up the bulk, and sulfur is just sprinkled in.
Adding DIB to the cathodes prevents them from cracking as easily and keeps lithium-sulfur compounds from crystallizing. The scientists tested different mixtures of sulfur and DIB and found that the optimum mix contained between 10 and 20 percent DIB by mass: Less DIB did not provide the cathode-protecting properties while more of the electrochemically inactive DIB began to drag down the battery’s energy density.
The researchers ran their optimized battery through 500 cycles and found that it retained more than half its initial capacity. Other experimental lithium-sulfur batteries have performed similarly, but their cathodes require more complex manufacturing processes that would be expensive to scale up, says Jeffrey Pyun, a chemist at the University of Arizona and Seoul National University. By contrast, the team’s polymer cathode requires only easily available materials and moderate heat. “We take it, we melt it in one step and pow, we get this plastic,” Pyun says. “If you were to come to our lab, we could do this in five minutes.”
Even so, we aren’t likely to see lithium-sulfur batteries in stores right away. Soles notes that a commercial battery technology has to do more than just meet performance specs. For example, lithium can combust if exposed to air, so any commercial lithium-sulfur battery will need to undergo rigorous safety testing before it hits the market.
SOURCE InvestorIntel
DATE : 2014-06-03
Idemitsu Kosan is in plans to shut its No.2 styrene monomer (SM) plant for maintenance turnaround.
A Polymerupdate source in Japan informed the plant is planned to be shut in late August 2014. It is slated to remain off-stream till early October 2014.
Located in Tokuyama, Japan, the plant has a capacity of 220,000 mt/year.
SOURCE PolymerUpdate
DATE : 2014-06-04
The Linde Group and BASF SE intend to cooperate in developing and licensing processes for the on-purpose production of linear butenes and butadiene. BASF has developed process technology and catalysts as well as the extraction technologies, while Linde is providing its expertise for the integration, optimization and commercialization of the process.
The new process will deliver an on-purpose route from butane to butadiene via butenes. Currently, the industry relies mainly on butadiene as a co-product from naphtha-cracking to ethylene. The shift to lighter cracker feedstock results in reduced volumes of co-products. Therefore the on-purpose production of higher olefins is gaining more and more importance.
The new BASF technology is currently being developed by mini plant and pilot plant operation in Ludwigshafen, said Dr Heinrich-Josef Blankertz, Senior Vice President Global Technology, of BASF’s Petrochemicals division. We are optimistic that we can offer a new best-in-class technology for the manufacturing of on-purpose butadiene to help producers meet the increasing global demand.
We focus on elaborating a solution that provides an efficient process characterized by optimal integration of the whole process chain, added Dr Ernst Haidegger, Head of Product Line Petrochemical Plants at Linde’s Engineering Division. This new technology is a welcome addition to our existing portfolio of petrochemical technologies.
Butadiene is a monomer used for the production of polymers, paper coating and synthetic rubber mainly for the tire production. Butenes are building blocks which are used in the chemical and in refining industries.
SOURCE Oreanda News
DATE : 2014-06-03
China's Qilu Petrochemical restarted its 80,000 tonne/year acrylonitrile (ACN) unit at Zibo in Shandong province on 3 June, following the completion of a turnaround which started on 20 May, a company source said on Tuesday.
Qilu Petrochemical would not supply spot ACN to the market yet as it is still building up stocks, the source added.
Fushun Petrochemical restarted its 92,000 tonne/year ACN unit at Fushun in Liaoning province on 2 June after completing scheduled maintenance which began on 16 May, a source from the company said.
However, Fushun Petrochemical will not be sending its spot ACN cargoes to the Shandong market until at least a few days later, the source added, without specifying the unit’s current operating rate.
Domestic ACN prices have been on an uptrend because of the short supply lately, market sources said.
However, domestic ACN prices may face downward pressure in June, since demand from the derivatives sector may not be ideal, some market players said.
Abundant supply from northern China-based plants returning from maintenance, combined with an influx of deep-sea cargoes into Shandong, may lead to an easing in supply tightness.
SOURCE Icis News
DATE : 2014-05-30
Thai MMA is expected to resume operation at its methyl methacrylate (MMA) plant in Map Ta Phut, Thailand over the weekend, a source close to the company said on Friday.
The plant was taken offline on 20 May following an explosion which affected one of its two 90,000 tonne/year MMA production lines.
Both lines were shut for inspection but only one will be brought up following the restart the other held offline until repairs are completed, the source added.
There is no definite date for the restart of the second line.
Thai MMA is a joint venture between Japan's Mitsubishi Rayon Corp (MRC) and Thailand's Siam Cement Group.
SOURCE Icis News