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Petrochemicals

EU Commission clears Hungary's investment aid for MOL plant

BRUSSELS (Reuters) — The European Commission on Wednesday cleared $154.12 MM of investment aid Hungary granted to oil and gas company MOL for expanding a plant in the North of the country.

SUEZ to build state-of-the-art laboratory in Texas to enhance innovation for O&G

SUEZ broke ground on a new laboratory in Tomball, Texas, north of Houston, which is expected to open mid-2018. In addition to continuing the research and development (R&D) of specialty chemicals for the industrial segment, the new facility will expand to include further process innovation in the oil and gas industry, focusing on global upstream and downstream applications.

Saudi Aramco sees progress on chemical project plan with SABIC by year-end

RIYADH (Reuters) — Saudi Aramco expects to decide by the end of 2017 on plans for a joint oil-to-chemicals project with Saudi Basic Industries Corp (SABIC), Aramco's chief executive said on Tuesday.

Petrochemicals continue to boost BASF earnings

FRANKFURT (Reuters) — German chemicals group BASF continued to benefit from strong prices of basic petrochemicals as capacity expansion projects in the sector lag behind global demand growth, posting higher-than-expected quarterly operating profit on Tuesday.

SECCO selects Honeywell plant technologies for operator training

CHENGDU, China — Honeywell Process Solutions (HPS) announced that Shanghai SECCO Petrochemical Company Limited (SECCO) will upgrade its operator training simulator (OTS) system to the Honeywell Connected Plant UniSim Competency Suite.

Fluor selected for petchem project expansion in the Philippines

IRVING, Texas — Fluor Corporation announced that it was awarded an engineering, procurement and construction management (EPCM) contract for the utilities, offsites and infrastructure scope of work for JG Summit’s petrochemical complex expansion in Batangas City, Philippines. Fluor booked the undisclosed contract value in Q3 2017.

EIA: Crude oil, petroleum product exports reach record levels in H1 2017

Crude oil exports in the first half of 2017 increased by more than 300,000 bpd from the first half of 2016 to 784,000 bpd, a 57% increase. Petroleum product exports also grew over the same period. Crude oil and propane exports each reached record highs of 0.9 MMbpd, and distillate exports reached a record high of 1.3 MMbpd.

US starts anti-dumping probe into PET resin imports

WASHINGTON (Reuters) — The US Department of Commerce said on Tuesday it began an investigation into whether imports of polyethylene terephthalate (PET) resin from Brazil, Indonesia, South Korea, Pakistan and Taiwan were being dumped in the US market.

ExxonMobil begins production on new polyethylene line at Mont Belvieu plastics plant

HOUSTON — ExxonMobil Chemical Company announced that it has commenced production on the first of two new 650,000 tpy high-performance polyethylene lines at its plastics plant in Mont Belvieu, Texas.

SK Innovation to expand petchem output in China

SEOUL (Reuters) — South Korea’s SK Innovation said on Tuesday it will invest $657 MM to boost production capacity at its petrochemical plants in China, jointly owned by China’s Sinopec Corp.