Page 41 - Plastics News April 2019

Business news

Vietnam to end plastic imports in MRPL to shut crude unit, other

2025 facilities for maintenance

he Vietnamese government has reiterated its plan to angalore Refinery
Tphase out scrap plastic imports altogether, noting all Mand Petrochemicals
scrap plastic will be barred beginning in 2025. VNExpress Ltd plans to shut a 60,000
reported last week that the government of Vietnam barrels per day (bpd) crude
announced the country “will not import plastic scrap unit and some secondary
from 2025” and will work through the backlog of scrap units for maintenance
plastic containers that remain stuck at the country’s ports. from mid-April for about
There were nearly 21,600 containers of recyclables sitting a month. Considering the
at ports as of late February, according to the article, water scarcity in the region,
and nearly half had been sitting for longer than three major industries such as
months. In an effort to get that material moving, “the Mangalore Refinery and
government instructed the environment ministry to issue Petrochemicals Ltd (MRPL)
environmental safety certificates to eligible containers are coinciding their annual
so that their importers could use them to manufacture maintenance shutdown with summer months according
products,” VNExpress wrote. to a report in Business Line. M Venkatesh, Managing
Director of MRPL, told Business Line that MRPL faced
The government instructed the environment ministry problems due to water scarcity in 2016. However, it
to issue environmental safety certificates to eligible managed the situation in 2017 and 2018. On March 23,
containers so that their importers could use them to MCC imposed a restriction on lifting more than 15 mgd
manufacture products. All imports of plastic scrap as (million gallons a day) of water for MRPL and Mangaluru
SEZ (Special Economic Zone). It was further reduced
to 13 mgd for April 1-15 period. Venaktesh said MRPL
plans maintenance shutdown of its refineries well in
advance. OMPL (ONGC-MRPL Petrochemicals Ltd) and
MRPL Phase-3 are taking shutdowns from April 15. The
entire phase 3 is taking shutdown sequentially from
April 15 to May 30. Depending on water supply, these
units will come back one-by-one from May 15.
MRPL, a subsidiary of the country's top explore Oil and
Natural Gas Corp, operates a 300,000 bpd refinery in
southern India. "Apart from regular maintenance,
feedstock would cease on December 31, 2024, it said. we will be readying the units to hook up a gasoline
Prime Minister Nguyen Xuan Phuc ordered to scrap imports treating unit towards the end of the year." MRPL will
temporarily last July, saying Vietnam must not become be commissioning gasoline treating units to maximise
a dumping ground for other countries’ scrap, leaving production of Euro-VI compliant petrol. India has
thousands of containers stuck at ports for months. His set a target for a country-wide roll out of Euro VI
orders followed a surge in imports in the first six months compliant fuels from April 2020. Mangalore Refinery
after China banned imports of certain wastes But steel, and Petrochemicals Limited (MRPL) is a schedule ‘A’
paper and plastic industries have expressed concern Miniratna, Central Public Sector Enterprise (CPSE)
since they need to import metal, paper and plastic scrap under the Ministry of Petroleum & Natural Gas, located
as feedstock.Vietnam imported 165 million pounds of in north of Mangaluru city, in Karnataka. The 15
scrap plastic from the U.S. in 2018, making it the sixth- Million Metric Tonne Refinery has got a versatile design
largest importer of U.S. plastic throughout the year. The with complex secondary processing units and a high
country brought in 7 percent of the scrap plastic exported flexibility to process Crudes of various API, delivering
from the U.S. a variety of quality products.

41 April 2019 Plastics News