Borealis said that it has reached an important milestone in the construction of its propane dehydrogenation (PDH) plant at Kallo, Belgium, said Chemweek.
The propylene splitter, one of the largest equipment items ever delivered to the port of Antwerp in one piece by ship, was successfully transported from the quay to the Borealis site at Kallo. The splitter is a distillation column, needed to split propane from propylene. It has a length of 105 meters, width of 10 meters and weight of 1,600 metric tons.
The PDH plant is Borealis’s most significant investment in Europe. The plant will have a targeted production capacity of 750,000 metric tons/year of propylene, making it one of the largest and most efficient facilities in the world. Production is expected to start by the end of 2022.
As MRC informed earlier, Borealis would not proceed with the development of a multi-billion-dollar integrated steam cracker and polyethylene (PE) project in Kazakhstan.
Ethylene and propylene are feedstocks for producing polyethylene (PE) and polypropylene (PP).
According to MRC’s ScanPlast report, Russia’s estimated PE consumption totalled 557,060 tonnes in the first three month of 2020, up by 7% year on year. High density polyethylene (HDPE) and linear low density polyethylene (LLDPE) shipments rose because of the increased capacity utilisation at ZapSibNeftekhim. Demand for LDPE subsided. At the same time, PP shipments to the Russian market was 267,630 tonnes in January-March 2020, down 20% year on year. Homopolymer PP and PP block copolymers accounted for the main decrease in imports.
By: Anna Larionova
Source: mrcplast
Johnson Matthey is expanding its fuel cell operations into China with a £7.5-million facility to manufacture critical components for customers in the region.
Having invested around EUR 25 million in the construction of this 80,000-m3 facility, Borealis can now source and store naphtha for its Porvoo operations from the global market in a more flexible, cost-efficient, and secure way.
Mitsubishi Chemical Holdings, Japan’s largest chemical maker, has named Jean-Marc Gilson, CEO of plant-ingredients maker Roquette Frères (Lestrem, France), as its next CEO, effective 1 April 2021.
