🏭 Less gas more liquid

Good morning. Both of today's stories aren't frequent topics for the newsletter, so if you're up for something new it's a good one to read.

From the condenser:

· Gas-to-liquids in Uzbekistan

· Maleic anhydride in Malaysia

· POTD: legos

Uzbekistan is officially converting gas to liquids

South Africa's Sasol, Malaysia's Petronas, and Uzbekistans's Uzbekneftegaz have announced that their $5.6 billion gas-to-liquids (GTL) joint venture has started-up production.

Some context:

The idea of converting natural gas into liquid fuels like diesel and kerosene is not a new one. Germany used the process (Fischer-Tropsch synthesis) to convert gasified coal (syngas) into fuels during World War II (they had a lot of coal and not a lot of oil). Since then, the process has been almost exclusively used by Sasol in South Africa for the same reason: lots of coal, but not a lot of oil—except that's not the case here.

So, what's going on here?

Instead of gasifying coal to produce syngas, Uzbekistan is producing syngas with natural gas using the water-gas shift reaction. That's because the country has plentiful natural gas resources, they are land-locked (expensive fuel imports), and there is political pressure to reduce natural gas exports. By converting some of that natural gas into liquid fuels, the country should be able to reduce their natural gas exports and their liquid fuel imports.

Bigger picture:

Converting a fuel (like natural gas) into another fuel (like diesel or kerosene) rarely makes sense. That's because it takes energy to do the conversion, so you end up leaving joules on the table. It happens every once in a while (like this case) when the market can compensate for the loss of enthalpy. Remember, liquid fuels are more valuable and gaseous fuels (more applications and easier to transport).

Petronas' new purpose for maleic anhydride

Malaysian oil & gas company, Petronas (also mentioned above), has agreed to acquire BASF's share of their joint venture (JV) maleic anhydride plant in Kuantan, Malaysia.

The background you need:

This JV consists of far more than the maleic anhydride plant in question—the complex in Kuantan is home to 15 other highly-integrated plants. The two companies formed the joint venture back in 1997 and have been pumping out products like acrylic monomers, oxo products, and 2-ethylhexanoic acid since then. Petronas is just buying BASF's share of the maleic anhydride plant.

So... maleic anhydride?

This stuff is typically made via the vapor-phase oxidation of butane (which we usually get from refining crude oil). Maleic anhydride is most commonly used to make unsaturated polyester resins and 1,4-butanediol (aka BDO, which mostly becomes Spandex). Until recently, this complex had been using maleic anhydride to make that BDO.

Connecting the dots:

Back in March 2021, the JV shut down the BDO site because the market became flush with coal-based BDO production in Asia (you can also make BDO by reacting acetylene, from coal, with formaldehyde). That choice meant all of that maleic anhdyride would have to be sold as-is to the market. Petronas is now buying that plant from BASF so they can upgrade it to produce higher-purity maleic anhydride for the food (artificial sweeteners and flavour enhancements) and pharmaceutical industries.

Some more headlines:

• A commerical airline used 100% sustainble aviation fuel in Sweden

• Covestro provided an update on its plans to recycle polyurethanes

• Elkem just bought a metal-powders processing company in Belgium

• BASF is expanding its battery materials capacity in China

• LG Chem wants to build a new hydrogen plant in Daesan, South Korea

Product of The Day:

Today, we're breaking down legos.

Since 1963, Legos have been famously known for being made out of a copolymer called acrylonitrile butadiene styrene (ABS). After 6 decades of practice, Lego has mastered the use of ABS—even with 20 micrometer tolerances the company reportedly only fails 18 bricks per million it makes.

While this polymer has treated the company well over the years, Lego is actively trying to move away from it towards a polymer that is more easily recycled (such as polyethylene terephthalate). That hasn't stopped Ineos or Toray from building new ABS plants (because Lego is far from their largest buyer)

In case you're interested:

• Course: Want to understand the major refining units like crackers and reformers? This will walk you through all of it.*

• Tip: Add Lustre to your browser so you can see price history and reviews before buying anything online.*

• Company History: Ever wondered where all of these big oil companies came from? Read about how Rockefeller's company gave birth to them all.

• Video: Are you still a student? Give Shawn Esquivel's video on the most important skills to learn a watch.

The bottoms:

All views represent those of the author not their employer.