Norway's Den norske stats oljeselskap AS, the North Sea's largest oil producer, and Himont Inc., the world's largest producer of polypropylene, believe their joint venture complex near Antwerp has changed the traditional structure of the petrochemical industry.
At a briefing and press conference, executives from the two companies and their new joint venture, North Sea Petrochemicals, covered their venture and its first 2 months of operation and presented their outlook for the polypropylene market.
Statoil stressed its intent to expand petrochemical operations in Europe.
The company supplies the complex with all the propane feed and refinery grade propylene it uses. The propane comes from Statoil's offshore production, the imported refinery grade propylene from Statoil's Mongstad, Norway, refinery.
PROPYLENE PRODUCTION
The Antwerp complex's splitter, the most important part of the purification system, produces 400,000 metric tons/year of polymer grade propylene. Of that, 250,060 metric tons/year comes from the Catofin dehydrogenation unit, while 150,000 metric tons/year comes from the refinery.
Traditionally, propylene has come from steam crackers. But it was accompanied by sometimes unwanted olefins such as ethylene or butadiene, and the volume of propylene depended on the type of feedstock.
Ethane crackers, for example, supply very little coproduct propylene. To produce 400,000 tons/year of propylene would require about 1 million tons/year of naphtha fed, steam cracker ethylene capacity.
I. Trapasso, chairman of Himont, says on-purpose propylene is therefore a major event in industrial technology and means security of supply for polypropylene production.
PLANT OPERATIONS
J.B. Stewart, managing director of North Sea Petrochemicals, said during the first 2 months of operation-since early February-the dehydrogenation plant operated at times in excess of design capacity.
But he anticipates the unit will run at about 90% of capacity during the course of a year.
He said the complex is a tolling operation for the two partners, and the emphasis is on reducing operating costs rather than on increasing revenues.
After only 2 months of operation he could not compare the cost of propylene from this route with that from traditional routes.
Statoil Petrochemicals & Plastics Pres. Torre Tonne said, "This plant is a candidate to be operated at full capacity long before others will be in that situation."
The polypropylene plant at the site has been on stream since October 1990.
It recently has operated at 10% above design rate.
Asked about running at such rates in a depressed polypropylene market, P. Morrione, president of Himont, said the depression is in price and profits, not volume.
He said the first 2 months of this year the market for polypropylene increased 17% in Europe and about 15% in the U.S. compared with the same period in 1991.
He sees a gain of 7% for 1992 in Europe. He said the current downturn is cyclical, and volume increases precede profitability.
Himont produces almost 2 million metric tons/year of polypropylene worldwide.
It has used some of the excess propylene from North Sea Petrochemicals at its other operations, but this product will generally be sold.
THE FUTURE
Tonne sees the 188 acre Antwerp site as a likely site for Statoil to expand its polyethylene production capacity. Nothing is definite now, but Tonne believes there is enough ethylene supply to support such a plant without building a steam cracker. However, he did not rule that out.
Statoil's methyl tertiary butyl ether plant at Kaarsto is in design and will be in operation in 1995.
Antwerp is a candidate for a second Statoil MTBE plant sometime in the 1990s, he said.
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