Good morning. Thank you to everyone who has taken a minute to fill out The Column's demographic survey—if you haven't yet, it would be much appreciated (link here). And as promised, here is the Sankey diagram so far:

From the condenser:

· SABIC's first crude-to-chemicals plant

· BASF's metal treating chemical

· MOTD: vinyl chloride

SABIC's first crude-to-chemicals plant

SABIC's subsidiary, S-Oil, has announced plans to build a $7 billion petrochemical complex, featuring a crude to chemicals (C2C) unit, at S-Oil's refinery in Ulsan, South Korea.

Some context:

If you're reading this, then you're aware of the fact that the vast majority of the chemicals and products we use today are derived from crude oil. In a drastic oversimplification: we start with mixture of hydrocarbons (crude oil), separate the small molecules from the big ones (distillation), sell what we can as fuels and lubricant oils, and then blast the rest in steam crackers to make olefins. This way of doing things converts about 5-20% of a barrel of crude oil into petrochemicals—C2C is meant to push that fraction closer to 70%.

So, what's the deal here?

The new site will include a C2C unit, a new steam cracker, an LLDPE unit (mostly for plastic films and sheets), and an HDPE unit (mostly for piping). The C2C unit will be the first commercialization of Saudi Aramco (SABIC's parent) and Lummus' technology and will process a 46,000 barrel per day mixture of crude oil (probably from Saudi Aramco) and low-value fuel oil (from the Ulsan refinery). The output, which will be mostly naphtha and off-gas, will be met downstream with the Ulsan refinery's existing naphtha and off-gas output at a new 1.8 million ton per year steam cracker. That steam cracker will feed those LLDPE and HDPE units.

Zooming out:

C2C has been talked about for quite a while now, but for all of its hype we have yet to see it implemented at a meaningful scale. SABIC scrapped a $20 billion project using the technology just 2 years ago. The technology is a response to declining demand for gasoline—it's an admission that the fuel value of crude oil is depleting, but an insistence that its material value will persist. Most of that material value is coming from ethylene, propylene, butene, and BTX, so the question we should be asking is whether or not crude oil is the best feedstock choice for incremental production capacity.

BASF's very special metal treater

BASF's subsidiary, Chemetall, has started-up a new surface treatment chemical site in Pinghu, China.

Some context:

These are chemicals that are applied to the surface of a material, normally metal or plastic, to alter the functionality, improve the performance, or adjust the appearance of that material. For example, if you apply a chromate conversion coating to steel or aluminum, you'll inhibit corrosion and improve the adherence of paints. Doing something like that extends the lifetime of the material, and is reflected in the reduced maintenance fraction of your operating costs.

So, what's the deal here?

It's not clear which of Chemetall's countless surface treatment chemicals will be produced at this site, but we do know that they at least plan to make what it's calling "the next generation of metal protection". According to Chemetall, that next generation is Oxsilan—a mixture of zirconium and silanes that works on many different metals, requires fewer production steps, and results in a thinner coating than its competition (chromate and zinc-phosphate conversion coating).

Bigger picture:

BASF is saying that "Asia Pacific is the world’s fastest growing surface treatment market and China accounts for approximately 50% of the market in Asia.", so if Oxsilan has the competitive advantage, building capacity in China means two things: (1) they will replace the most applications the fastest, and (2) their customers in the region will be happier with delivery times (more capacity usually means more reliability).

Some more headlines

• Agilyx, Technip Energies, Kumho Petrochemical are going to depolymerize polystyrene

• EPPC scheduled a turnaround for a PDH/PP complex in Egypt

• Neste delivered about 500,000 gallons of sustainable aviation fuel to LAX

• C&EN is reporting that BASF is taking biotech seriously

• The Financial Times covered a competitor to Monolith Materials

Molecule of The Day

Today's MOTD is the most important one yet: vinyl chloride.

Despite its sweet odor, this molecule is a highly toxic and carcinogenic intermediate that serves one single purpose—to produce polyvinyl chloride (that's PVC). Today, we produce about 60 million tons of vinyl chloride (commonly referred to as VCM) each year to do just that.

While the molecule was first synthesized in 1835, it wasn't until Waldo Semon figured out how to make PVC less brittle that we started make tons of this stuff. About half of the world's VCM is made by thermally cracking EDC (which is made by the direct chlorination of ethylene), and the other half is made by reacting acetylene with hydrogen chloride. The acetylene half of production is done almost entirely in China thanks to the region's vast coal and lime resources that make acetylene relatively cheap.

The main producers of VCM are the same ones who make PVC—think of Westlake Chemical, OxyChem, Shintech, and Formosa.

The reboiler

• Podcast: Check out this episode featuring Dr. Tina Tosukhowong of PTT Global Chemical on her career and stance on sustainability.

• Book: Maybe you've never heard of the Scientific Design company, but if you're in the industry, this one is worth a read.*

• Infographic: Take a look at the molecules that make trash smell bad.

The bottoms

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