Celanese to expand compounding capacity; Crude oil and petroleum product exports reach record level
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Celanese to expand compounding, resin capacity
Compounder and resin producer Celanese plans to expand the capacity of its global compounding assets and certain product-specific manufacturing production sites to support the significant growth in its engineered materials business.
For compounding, the new lines and expansions will add 50,000-60,000 tonnes/year of compounding capacity. Debottlenecking existing plants will add another 10,000-15,000 tonnes/year of capacity.
In the Americas region, Celanese will add two production lines at its Florence, Kentucky, facility, as well as expand compounding production capacity at its Bishop, Texas, facility.
In the Asia region, Celanese will add two production lines at its Nanjing, China, facility and one production line at its recently acquired Suzhou, China, facility.
In the European region, Celanese will add one new production line at its recently acquired Forli, Italy, facility.
Celanese expects to complete the projects in 2018-2019, it said. The company did not say how much the projects would cost.
Celanese is building the plants to meet growing demand for specialty materials from the medical, automotive, consumer-goods and electronics industry, said Scott Richardson, senior vice president, Celanese engineered materials business.
Crude oil and petroleum product exports reach record levels in the first half of 2017
Crude oil exports in the first half of 2017 increased by more than 300,000 barrels/day from the first half of 2016, reaching a record high of 0.9 million barrels/day, according to the U.S. Energy Inforrmation Administration (EIA).
Petroleum product exports also grew over the same period with propane and distillate exports reaching record highs of 0.9 million barrels/day and 1.3 million barrels/day, respectively.
Following the removal of restrictions on exporting U.S. crude oil in December 2015, total volumes of crude oil exports and the number of destinations for those exports both increased. The U.S. exported crude oil to 26 countries in the first half of 2017 compared with 17 countries in the first half of 2016.
Canada remained the largest recipient of U.S. crude oil exports at 248,000 barrels/day in the first half of 2017 but imported an average of 46,000 barrels/day fewer than in the first half of 2016.
China increased its crude oil imports from the United States by 154,000 barrels/day and became the second-largest importer of U.S. crude oil, averaging 163,000 barrels/day the first half of the year.
Mexico was the destination of more than half (53%) of total U.S. gasoline exports in the first half of 2017. Recent market reforms in Mexico, which allow entities other than state-owned Pemex to import petroleum products, may have contributed to the recent growth in Mexico’s gasoline imports from the U.S.
Although Mexico produces large amounts of crude oil, Mexico’s refinery output of products such as gasoline has been declining since 2015.
In the first half of 2017, Mexico experienced unexpected refinery outages that reduced production of gasoline and distillates even further, and U.S. exports of gasoline to Mexico increased by 27,000 barrels/day compared with the first half of 2016.