Dow/PIC のPETのJV、イタリア工場を売却

March 25, 2010 　　www.polimerica.eu

Equipolymers sell Italian plant

Equipolymers has signed a definitive agreement to sell its pure terephthalic acid (PTA) and polyethylene terephthalate resins (PET) production facilities at its manufacturing site in Ottana, Italy, to a joint-venture between Ottana Energia and Indorama.

Equipolymers will continue to run its manufacturing facility in Schkopau, Germany. The sale is expected to close June 1, 2010. Financial terms of the agreement were not disclosed.

Ottana Energia, owned by Paolo Clivati, currently operates a 140 megawatt power and utilities plant on the Ottana manufacturing site. Indorama is a global chemical producer of PTA, PET and polyester fibers based regionally in Thailand, the Netherlands, Lithuania, and the USA.

“The decision to sell the Ottana assets was made to sustain the long-term value of the site while enabling our Equipolymers production facilities in Schkopau, Germany to focus on R&D and new technologies in markets that best serve our customers,” said Ramesh Ramachandran, president and CEO for Equipolymers. “This move will allow us to maximize access to key raw materials and improve our cost structure over the longer term.”

　

Equipolymers announced plans to sell the Italian operation earlier this year, citing "disappointing financial results".

The company manufactures and sells PET resins using PTA produced in-house. The PET plant at Ottana has a capacity of 160,000tpa but is currently running below capacity due to poor demand. It was completely off-stream between August and December last year for technical reasons.

The company did not say whether it will make any job cuts at the Ottana plant.

“Once the sale is finalised, the new owners will make decisions about the future structure of the new company,” a spokesperson told European Plastics News.

　

既存JV概要

• Schkopau, Germany:
  • PET 1 facility with production capacity of 160.000 MT/year
  • PET 2 facility with production capacity of 175.000 MT/year
• Ottana, Italy:
  • PET facility with production capacity of 160.000 MT/year - effective August/September 2007
  • PTA facility with production capacity of 190.000 MT/year

Equipolymers is a company dedicated to the manufacture and marketing of PET resins.

The company is a 50/50 global joint venture of  The Dow Chemical Company (Dow) and Petrochemical Industries Company (PIC), a wholly owned subsidiary of Kuwait Petroleum Corporation.

Since its formation in 2004, Equipolymers has leveraged the unique strengths of its parent companies, Dow and PIC of Kuwait.

Equipolymers is the preferred partner for brand-owners and other key value chain players in the PET market, through innovation-driven leadership and high-quality product standards.

Equipolymers' production facilities are located in Ottana (Italy) and Schkopau (Germany).

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Founded by Mr. M.L. Lohia in 1976 in Indonesia with a small spun yarn manufacturing plant, the Indorama Group today is a leading Asian conglomerate with market leadership position in its products. Indorama is a global manufacturer of diversified industrial products such as Polyester, PET Resins, PTA, Polyethylene, Polypropylene, Spun Yarns, Fabrics, and Medical Gloves. Indorama has manufacturing facilities in ten countries over four continents.

Mr. Sri Prakash Lohia is the Group Chairman and Mr. Amit Lohia is the Group Managing Director.

Along with Indorama Ventures, which is co-owned by Mr. Aloke Lohia, Indorama is the world’s largest manufacturer of polyester and 12th largest global producer of PTA.
Indorama is also the 2nd largest producer of polyolefin's (PE and PP) in Africa.

With yarn spinning operations in 5 countries, Indorama is probably the most global spun yarn producer in the world.

Indorama’s products are shipped to over 90 countries across the four continents and over 20,000 employees are proud members of the Indorama family of companies.

Mar 20, 2012 (This Day/All Africa Global Media via COMTEX) 　

Indorama's 86,000MT Petrochemical Plant Begins Production Soon

Nigeria's aspiration to become a hub for the petrochemical industry is becoming a reality as a new petrochemical production plant built by Indorama Group, the core investor in the Eleme Petrochemicals plant, has been slated for inauguration in May this year.

　　　　2006/5/26　アジア企業の海外展開

The massive plant, which will produce Poly-Ethylene Terephthalate - a major raw material for automobiles, pharmaceutical and textiles industries, was built at a cost of $300 million.

The company said the plant, with a capacity to produce 86,000 metric tonnes per annum of Poly-Ethylene Terephthalate, is one of the three new projects Indorama is pumping a total $2.1 billion investment in the Eleme Petrochemical plant.

Two other projects, methanol and a fertiliser plants, the company would cost the group $1.8 billion.

"The Poly-Ethylene Terephthalate plant will come on stream between April and May, 2012 when all regulatory procedures have been completed," Indorama spokesman was quoted to have said.

"Production will serve all local demands first before any exports," the spokesman said, adding that Africa's top energy producer would be able to save a lot of foreign exchange it expended on importing the raw material.

Indorama bought into the Eleme Petrochemicals, a former subsidiary of the state-oil company Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation (NNP) for $400 million when it was privatised in 2006.

The Eleme plant currently produces polyethylene and polypropylene, with production capacity of 240,000MT/year and 95,000MT/year, respectively.

Minister of Trade and Investment, Olusegun Aganga, who was thrilled by Indorama's investment plans in the Eleme plant, said in February that Nigeria would have the second-largest petrochemical facility in Africa.

Agagu had explained that for years, Nigeria- the seventh largest producer of crude oil worldwide and well-endowed with abundant natural gas, had neglected this key sector that had served as the catalyst in the transformation of the economies of countries such as Qatar, China, South Korea and Singapore.

The minister said that the country's abundant oil and gas reserves offered her another opportunity to develop a strong petrochemical industry.

The minister had noted that EPCL, since its privatisation through which Indorama invested $575 million, had generated dividends worth N45 billion to both the Federal and Rivers State governments, adding that the company had also paid taxes close to about N16 billion.

Eleme Petrochemicals Company Limited is a polyolefin producer based in Port Harcourt, Rivers State, Nigeria. Established in 1988, Eleme was a 100 per cent subsidiary of the Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation (NNPC). The Indorama Group was declared core investor by the National Council of Privatisation in 2005. The privatisation process of EPCL began in May 2005 and was completed in May 2006.

The Eleme Petrochemicals complex is located in Eleme town near the Nigerian city of Port Harcourt in Rivers State. It was built in 1995 by a consortium comprising of Chiyoda, JGC, and Kobe Steel, of Japan, Technimont of Italy, and Spie Batignolles of France. The complex comprises of an olefins unit, a polyolefins unit, a captive power plant and other supporting units.

EPCL is strategically positioned to feed the growing demand of plastics in Africa. With state-of-the-art manufacturing facilities, the complex consists of a gas feed cracker unit and two main downstream plants. The total production is over 550 KTA of world-class olefins and polyolefins.

Eleme Petrochemicals is poised to be become one of the leading suppliers of polyolefins on the African continent. The company strives to ensure total customer satisfaction and consistently produce high quality products. The company focuses on providing world-class products at competitive prices and customised grades to suit the customer's specific requirements.

The Eleme Complex is designed to produce 240,000 metric tons per year of polyethylene, and 95,000 metric tons per year of polypropylene. To produce these resins, natural gas liquids are cracked in a M.W. Kellogg (USA) licensed olefins plant.

The polyethylene plant is a Sclairtech process licensed by Nova Chemicals and the propylene plant is Spheripol process of Basell. Additionally 22,000 metric tons of Butene-1 can be produced in the complex. Butene-1 is used as co-monomer in the production of linear low-density polyethylene (LLDPE).

The first Turnaround Maintenance (TAM) was performed from 17 May 2006 until the end of September 2006. After the completion of all planned activities, the plants were operational on 15 September 2006. The President of the Federal Republic of Nigeria re-commissioned the new privatised and revitalised EPCL on 12 October 2006.

The plant is situated on 400 hectares of land and potential expansion capabilities are well catered to in the layout design. Indorama is planning to make this complex the petrochemical hub of Africa by bringing it up to its full design capacity, and then undertaking expansion plans.                    located at Port Harcourt, Nigeria. 
　

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February 29 2012 allafrica.com

Nigeria: N326 Billion New Plants for Eleme Petrochemicals

INDORAMA Group, the core investor in Eleme Petrochemicals Limited, River State, has concluded plans to invest additional N326 billion ($2.1billion) in three new plants at Eleme Petrochemicals for PET, fertiliser and methanol projects within the next three years.

These would complement the existing investment of about $575million, which the Group has injected to revive the moribund plants that currently produce various petrochemical products such as polyethylene and polypropylene for exports.

The Minister of Trade and Investment, Mr. Olusegun Aganga, confirmed the Group's new investment plan during his inspection of the facilities and operations of the company.

Indorama Corporation, with headquarters in Indonesia, was founded in 1976 and operates in Singapore, India, Thailand, Egypt, Sri-Lanka and Turkey, among other countries. The company is a global manufacturer of diversified industrial products including polyester and intermediates (fibre, PET, Resin, PTA), spun yarns, polyolefin, cement, textiles and industrial gloves. It emerged core investor in the privatisation of Eleme Petrochemicals in 2006.

Currently, the Eleme Petrochemicals Company Limited has the following ownership structure: Federal Governmenty (15 per cent); Rivers State Government(10 per cent); host communities( 7.5 per cent); employees of EPCL(2.5 per cent); and Indorama(65 per cent).

However, Aganga said that the federal government would initiate policies and a regime of incentives which would drive the petrochemicals sector to ensure that Nigeria became the hub of the petrochemicals industry in Africa and globally.

According to him: "The Indorama Group said they had concluded plans to invest additional $2.1billion in three new plants at Eleme Petrochemicals for PET, fertiliser and methanol projects. This is a clear indication that we have the potentials to make Nigeria the hub of petrochemical industry in Africa and then compete with other major global players. "

"This is because we have the raw materials and the people. The model today is that most of the raw materials used in the petrochemical industry are produced in the Middle East. The latest Forbes ranking of the wealthiest nations, which was released a few days ago, showed that Qatar has become the richest country in the world, with per capita income of more than $88,000. This is based on the growth of their petrochemical industry."

He added, "The reason I am focusing on the development of the petrochemical industry is that my vision, and that of this administration, is that in this industry, we can easily become the leaders in the world. Specifically, I am focusing on areas where we can become top three in Africa and at least top 10 globally.

"Already, with the plans the Indorama Group has on ground, we will have the second largest petrochemicals facility in Africa, second to South Africa. However, it won't take long, within the next two to three years, we should have the largest petrochemicals industry in Africa."

Aganga said that his ministry would base its industrial revolution strategy on areas where the country had comparative and competitive advantage, adding that the petrochemicals industry was one of the key areas to be given priority attention.

He said that EPCL was a good example of the success story of the privatisation programme of the Federal Government, adding that available records from the company showed that it had paid dividends of over N40bn to the Federal Government, Rivers State Government and employees in the last five years.

He hinged the success of Eleme Petrochemicals on its market leadership, strong corporate value and ethics and excellent public-private partnership (PPP) model, which gave the community, employees, state and the Federal Government equity stakes in the company.

He said, "The parent company of EPCL, the Indorama Group, are world leaders in the petrochemical industry. They are the biggest producers of polyester globally and have presence in at least 16 countries, with manufacturing sites in about 30 locations. They took over the EPCL, which was a subsidiary of NNPC in 2006. From the records made available to me, over a five-year period, they have grown their revenue and production at least 32 times.

"Also, revenue has grown significantly, even as they have paid taxes and dividends to the Federal and state governments to the tune of about N45bn. So, that is the success story of the privatisation programme of the government. Too many times, we have heard that the privatization policy of the government has not gone down well. But this is an example of a success story of the privatisation of a company that was not doing well under government but is now doing extremely well and has now become the leading light in petrochemical industry in Nigeria."

Speaking during the inspection visit, the Managing Director of Eleme petrochemicals, Mr. Manish Mundra, said the INDORAMA Group was ready to partner the Federal Government on making the country the global hub of the petrochemical industry.

He said, "There are more than 20 compounds and sub-compounds that can be derived from the petrochemicals sector for various areas of the social and economic development of any country. Nigeria has the potential in terms of natural and human resources to become the hub of the petrochemical industry in the world. We are ready to work with the Federal Government to make this happen."
　

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KBR  February 11, 2010

KBR Awarded Contract by INDORAMA-Owned Eleme Petrochemicals Co. Ltd. for Ethylene Plant Upgrade

KBR announced today that it has been awarded a contract by INDORAMA-owned Eleme Petrochemicals Co. Ltd (Eleme) to provide technology licensing and engineering services related to the revamp of Eleme’s Port Harcourt, Nigeria ethylene plant.

KBR will provide an extended basic engineering design package for the partial revamp of six Millisecond furnaces to incorporate its SCORE^TM technology features. The plant was originally designed and engineered by KBR, and came onstream in 1995. The goal of the revamp is to enhance the operating performance and reliability of the existing, fifteen year old furnaces, improve run lengths and improve overall performance and reliability. The project will continue through the restarting of revamped furnaces with a series of follow-on services under an existing Technical Services Agreement between the two companies.

"KBR is pleased to partner with Eleme on its critical plant revamp project," said Tim Challand, President, KBR Technology. "This contract award demonstrates KBR Technology's commitment to delivering innovative process technology solutions that add value to customers throughout the plant lifecycle and reaffirms our technology presence worldwide."

KBR is a global engineering, construction and services company supporting the energy, hydrocarbon, government services, minerals, civil infrastructure, power and industrial markets. For more information, visit www.kbr.com.

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Oil Refining in Nigeria

There are two refineries at Alesa-Eleme, near Port Harcourt in Nigeria's southernmost province, Rivers State. The refineries were originally known as Port Harcourt I and Port Harcourt II, but in 1993 the distillation column and tankage at Port Harcourt I was connected to the Vacuum unit and FCC at Port Harcourt II, and the operation of the refinery was integrated, and operated under one management.

In 1965 Shell/BP built Port Harcourt I as a topping and reforming refinery with a distillation capacity of 3 million mt/yr (60,000 bpd). In 1977 the Nigerian Government partially nationalised the oil industry, taking a 60% interest in all operations including the refinery.
Port Harcourt II was built as a complex refinery with a distillation capacity of 7.5 million mt/yr (150,000 bpd). It came on stream in 1989. It ran well until 1993 when frequent utility plant failures caused regular shutdowns that resulted in equipment damage. The situation deteriorated rapidly from 1994 when the military government cut NNPC’s “take” from the domestic sales price of oil products from 84% to 22%, causing a cash crisis, and a virtual halt to most maintenance work.

Crude supply to both refineries is 100% Bonny Light, supplied by pipeline from the Shell operated Bonny field.

Port Harcourt refinery performance has been consistently poor over the past 10 years, only rising above 50% on 4 occasions. From 1993 to 1998 the main problem was PH I that did not operate at all. After operating between 1999 and 2002 it has ceased operations since.

The Eleme Petrochemical plant, which was built adjacent to the Port Harcourt refinery in 1995, has an Olefin production capacity of 483,000 mt/yr, a Polypropylene capacity of 80,000 mt/yr, and a Polyethylene production capacity of 250,000 mt/yr. Like the refinery it has suffered from many technical problems, and has only functioned at l production levels of less than 40%.

The Warri refinery, located at Warri in Nigeria's Delta State, is a complex refinery with a distillation capacity of 6.3 million mt/yr (125,000 bpd). The refinery came on stream in 1978. It is managed jointly with a petrochemicals plant built in 1986 to produce 35,000 mt/yr of polypropylene and 18,000 mt/yr of carbon black.

The refinery crude supply is from the ChevronTexaco Escravos fields offshore Warri, and from onshore fields operated by Shell, ChevronTexaco and others. The pipeline to Kaduna refinery from the Chevron Escravos terminal passes through Warri refinery, and the crude supply to the two refineries is largely interlinked. Evacuation of products is by the refinery truck loading rack, by products pipeline, and by ship from the 2 refinery jetties about 1Km from the refinery. Loading and discharging at the jetties is limited to small vessels due to the 150 M LOA restrictions, and the shallow draft in the river and at the Escravos river bar.

Warri refinery suffered badly when the Abacha government cut the NNPC portion of the pump price from 83% to 22% in 1994. The Military government raised the price from N3.25/ltr to 11N/ltr in the face of massive Naira devaluation on the parallel market (the official rate was pegged at 22 until 1995), but kept the NNPC allowance the same. As most of the refinery maintenance costs were for imported spare parts, very little maintenance was carried out, and serious breakdowns -occurred. In 1998 the new civilian government ordered massive investment to remedy the problems, and a $200 million turnaround started in early 2000. This led to a significant improvement in throughput, although FCC performance has been erratic. In 2003 the refinery was caught up in the tribal unrest in the delta region, and the crude supply pipeline was cut by sabotage for much of the year so throughput was only around 30% capacity.

The Kaduna refinery, in northern Nigeria, is a complex refinery with a distillation capacity of 5.5 million mt /yr (110,000 bpd). The first 50,000 bpd unit, built in 1980, was a fuels unit designed to run light Nigerian crude. It was later revamped to 60,000bpd by the addition of a pre-flash unit. In 1982, a 50,000 bpd sour crude unit was built, designed to provide feed to a lube baseoil manufacturing plant, an asphalt plant, and an Linear Alkyl Benzate (LAB) plant. The plant was initially designed to run Venezuelan crude, but was later re-certified to produce lubes from Arab Light crude.

In 1987 the LAB plant was started up. The plant can manufacture 30,000 mt/year of LAB, 15,000 mt/year of benzene, and 30,000 mt/year of kero solvent, but has not operated since 1998. A drum plant was also installed, and a 6,000 bpd asphalt blowing unit.

The refinery has been plagued by technical malfunctions and breakdowns, and suffers from being in a location at the end of an insecure pipeline that is remote from the crude supply. In July 1997, after many years of low throughput, the refinery suffered a total shutdown following a serious fire, and did not restart until 1999.

In 1997 a major contract valued at $215 million was awarded to Total International to handle repair of specific parts of the refinery and to rebuild the depleted spare parts inventory. This project was fraught with difficulties for Total resulting from exaggerated expectations, diversion of funds, and numerous local problems. Both CDU’s restarted in 1999. However there has been no regular sour crude supply since 1992, and since 1998 the sour crude unit has not operated due to lack of crude feed.

The sweet crude unit operated reasonably well between 1999 and 2002, but a fire in a crude heater in October 2002 caused a capacity loss. In 2003 throughput is estimated to be around 30% of capacity, mainly due to problems on the crude pipeline. The FCC has operated at less than 10% capacity since 1999.

A 500KM pipeline from Warri refinery supplies the crude to KPRC(Kaduna Petroleum Refining Company). Most of the sweet crude is sourced from the ChevronTexaco Escravos fields, but about 20,000 bpd comes from the Ughelli field that is supplied via a spur that joins the line north of Warri refinery. The pipeline crosses a number of rivers and other obstacles, and is constantly being ruptured by both natural and man-made causes. The Arab Light sour crude is imported through an SBM at Escravos (currently out of service) into NNPC constructed storage tanks behind the ChevronTexaco facilities. Prior to 1992 the supply of Arab Light crude was supplied in exchange for Forcados, and this contract was much sought after by traders.

During political unrest in the delta in 2003, the pipeline from Escravos to Warri was sabotaged and blown apart in many places. NNPC ordered repairs to the line, but it was out of commission from April to December, and then had further problems. The refinery can still receive small quantities of Ughelli crude, but this only allows it to operate sporadically.