Borealis AG is an Austrian chemical company and is the world's eighth largest producer of polyethylene (PE) and polypropylene (PP). It is headquartered in Vienna, Austria.
Borealis is an international provider of polyolefins, base chemicals, and fertilizers.[2] The company has its head office in Vienna, Austria and currently employs about 6,900 people throughout over 120 countries.[3] In 2020, Borealis generated a net profit of about EUR 589 million.[4] The company operates primarily in Europe, with manufacturing plants in Belgium, Central Europe (Austria and Germany), Finland, and Sweden. It also operates compounding units in Brazil, Italy, and the United States, two "innovation centres", its European Innovation Headquarters, as well as customer service centres in several countries.
At the beginning of 2017, the International Petroleum Investment Company (IPIC) of Abu Dhabi and Mubadala merged.[5] Mubadala, through its holding company, owned 64% of Borealis, with the remaining 36% belonging to Austria-based OMV, an integrated, international oil and gas company. As of autumn 2020 OMV owned 75% of Borealis, while Mubadala owned 25%.
Borealis employs over 500 people in research and development. There are two research centres in Sweden and Finland, as well as the European Innovation Headquarters in Linz, Austria. In the latter, 300 experts from 30 different nations work on the implementation of new ideas. In 2019, Borealis filed a total of 179 new patent priority applications, which is more than any other Austrian company.[6]
History
Borealis was founded in 1994 by the merging of the petrochemical interests of Finnish Oil company Neste and the Norwegian oil company Statoil (now renamed Equinor). In 1998, the petrochemicals sector of OMV was included; OMV and IPIC took over the 50% business share of Neste. In 2005, Statoil gave up its share of Borealis and one year later, in June 2006, the headquarters was relocated from Copenhagen to Vienna. Adnoc owns 25% of the company, with the remaining 75% owned by OMV, an integrated, international oil and gas company.
Products
Polyolefins
The polyolefin products manufactured by Borealis form the basis of many plastics applications that are an intrinsic part of our daily lives. Borealis polyolefins have a role to play in saving energy along the value chain and promoting more efficient use of natural resources.
Consumer products
Borealis supplies superior polyolefin plastic materials used in consumer products, advanced packaging and fibre. More specifically, Borealis polyolefins are used to make applications possible in flexible packaging (including blown film, heat seal and extrusion coating), rigid packaging (caps and closures, bottles, thin wall packaging, thermoforming), non-woven and technical fibres, and appliances.
Automotive
Borealis supplies polyolefin plastic materials for engineering applications in the automotive industry. Plastic materials replace conventional materials such as metal, rubber and engineering polymers. In automotive vehicles, Borealis’ polyolefin plastic materials are used in a wide range of exterior, interior, and under-the-bonnet applications, including bumpers, body panels, trims, dashboards, door claddings, climate control and cooling systems, air intake manifolds and battery cases.
Energy
The company provides extra-high, high and medium voltage cable applications as well as semi-conductive products that are used for energy transmission and distribution, data and communication cables, and for building and automotive wires and cables.
Pipes and fittings
Borealis offers pipes used in water and gas supply, wastewater and sewage disposal, in-house plumbing and heating, and the oil and gas industry, including multi-layer coatings for onshore and offshore oil and gas pipelines.
New business development
The company develops products in the areas of healthcare, plastomers and foamable materials.
Base chemicals
Borealis produces a wide range of base chemicals such as melamine, phenol, acetone, ethylene and propylene for use in numerous and diverse industries, as well as fertilizers and technical nitrogen products.
Hydrocarbons and energy
Borealis sources basic feedstock such as naphtha, butane, propane and ethane from the international oil and gas markets. They convert these into ethylene, propylene, and cracker co-products through their hydrocarbon units.
Melamine
Agrolinz Melamine International (AMI) was consolidated into Borealis in 2007 and renamed Borealis Agrolinz Melamine GmbH. Agrolinz provides melamine (used to treat flooring and furniture for resistance to wear and tear) and fertilizer. Borealis produces melamine at its plants in Linz, Austria, and in Piesteritz, Germany. Gained through conversion from urea, melamine is an essential material for the global production of synthetic resins.
Fertilizers
Borealis supplies over five million tonnes of fertilizers and technical nitrogen products each year via its Borealis L.A.T distribution network. Borealis L.A.T has 60 warehouses in Europe and an inventory capacity of over 700 kilotonnes. Its distribution network stretches from its headquarters in Linz along the Rhine and Danube all the way from the Atlantic to the Black Sea. There are subsidiaries all across Europe: Czech Republic, Slovakia, Romania, Hungary, Croatia, Serbia and Bulgaria. In Germany, Italy and France, dedicated L.A.T sales representatives work on-site for customers.
Borealis operates fertilizer production plants in Austria, France, the Netherlands and Belgium. In France, Borealis is the largest producer of nitrogen fertilizers, with three production facilities in Grand-Quevilly, Grandpuits and Ottmarsheim, as well as a storage site at La Rochelle. Borealis sites are located in important grain-producing regions.
In 2013, Borealis acquired a majority interest in Rosier SA, a mineral fertilizer producer with plants in Belgium and the Netherlands. At present, Borealis has a 77.4% holding in Rosier. With the recently announced world-scale ammonia project in the United States, Borealis continues its ambitious growth strategy in the fertilizer business.[7]
Technology
Borstar proprietary technology
Borstar is Borealis' proprietary technology for manufacturing polyethylene (PE) and polypropylene (PP).[8]
Borouge is Borealis’ joint venture with the Abu Dhabi National Oil Company (ADNOC). Its facility is in Ruwais, Abu Dhabi (UAE) and consists of 3 facilities:
Borouge 1 was founded in 2001 and has an ethane-based cracker for production of 600.000 tonnes ethylene per year and two PE lines with a combined capacity of 580.000 tonnes/year and utilises Borealis' Borstar PE technology.
Borouge 2 was a major expansion project complete in 2010 which tripled the annual capacity of polyolefin capacity in Ruwais to 2 million tonnes/year.
Since its completion in 2016 the Borouge 3 plant expansion makes Borouge the world’s largest integrated polyolefins complex. The additional 2.5 million tonnes of polyolefins capacity yield a total Borouge capacity of 4.5 million tonnes, and a combined Borealis and Borouge capacity of 8 million tonnes.[9]
ADNOC and Borealis moved to the pre-FEED phase for the construction of the Borouge 4 complex, which was slated to come on stream around 2023. Borouge 4 encompasses a mixed feedstock cracker, using existing feedstock available in Abu Dhabi and downstream derivatives units for both polyolefin and non-polyolefin products.[9]
Borealis Brasil
Borealis Brasil S.A. is a joint venture between Borealis (80%) and the Brazilian Braskem (20%). Located in Itatiba and Triunfo in Brasil and formed in 1999. It serves the automotive industry in South America.[10]
Total
The French oil company Total joined with Canada’s Nova Chemicals and Austria’s Borealis (themselves in a joint venture known as Novealis) to build a $1.7 billion ethylene cracker plus a polyethylene plant, adjacent to Total's Port Arthur refinery in Texas. The cracker, also known as Bay-Pol, has 1 million metric tons per year of capacity, with an ethane cracker feeding two polyethene units[11][12]
Acquisition mtm
In July 2016, Borealis acquired one of Europe's largest manufacturers of post-consumer polyolefin recyclates – mtm Plastics GmbH and mtm Compact GmbH.
mtm is able to process PO post-consumer plastic waste (also mixed and inferior) and converts around 70,000 tonnes of this raw material annually into recyclates. mtm uses mixed packaging, bulky household and industrial waste as raw materials.
mtm's recyclates are mainly used in injection moulding and extrusion processes. Typical applications: Containers and transport packaging, household goods, products for the building sector or lawn grids.[13]
Acquisition Ecoplast
In August 2018, Borealis announced the acquisition of 100% of the shares in Ecoplast Kunststoffrecycling GmbH, an Austrian plastics recycler. Based in Wildon, Austria, Ecoplast processes around 35,000 tonnes of post-consumer plastic waste from households and industrial consumers every year, turning them into LDPE and HDPE recyclates.[14]
Petrochemicals are the chemical products obtained from petroleum by refining. Some chemical compounds made from petroleum are also obtained from other fossil fuels, such as coal or natural gas, or renewable sources such as maize, palm fruit or sugar cane.
OMV is an Austrian multinational integrated oil, gas and petrochemical company which is headquartered in Vienna, Austria. The company is listed on the Vienna Stock Exchange. In the 2021 Forbes Global 2000, OMV Group was ranked as the 413th -largest public company in the world.
NOVA Chemicals Corporation is a Canadian petrochemical company that has been in operation since 1954. NOVA was formed as provincial crown corporation called the Alberta Gas Trunk Line Company Limited to manage Alberta's natural gas collection system. During the 1970s, the company diversified into petroleum exploration and production, manufacturing, and petrochemicals. In 1980 the AGTL was renamed NOVA, An Alberta Corporation. After a decade of financial struggles, in 1998 NOVA sold its petroleum and pipeline business to TransCanada Pipelines and continued as solely a petrochemicals operation. The gas collection system run by TransCanada is now called the NOVA Gas Transmission Line.
Saudi Basic Industries Corporation, known as SABIC, is a Saudi chemical manufacturing company. 70% of SABIC's shares are owned by Saudi Aramco. It is active in petrochemicals, chemicals, industrial polymers, fertilizers, and metals. It is the second largest public company in the Middle East and Saudi Arabia as listed in Tadawul.
Bioplastics are plastic materials produced from renewable biomass sources, such as vegetable fats and oils, corn starch, straw, woodchips, sawdust, recycled food waste, etc. Some bioplastics are obtained by processing directly from natural biopolymers including polysaccharides and proteins, while others are chemically synthesised from sugar derivatives and lipids from either plants or animals, or biologically generated by fermentation of sugars or lipids. In contrast, common plastics, such as fossil-fuel plastics are derived from petroleum or natural gas.
Neste Oyj is an oil refining and marketing company located in Espoo, Finland. It produces, refines and markets oil products, provides engineering services, and licenses production technologies. Neste has operations in 14 countries.
Ar-Ruwais is a city located some 240 km (150 mi) west of Abu Dhabi City, in the Western Region of the Emirate of Abu Dhabi. "Al Ruwais" is largely dropped in relation to the Ruwais Refinery and other industrial development.
Masdar (Arabic:مصدر), also known as the Abu Dhabi Future Energy Company, is an Emirati state-owned renewable energy company. It was founded and chaired by Sultan Al Jaber in 2006 as a subsidiary of Mubadala Investment Company. The company is responsible for development of Masdar City, which headquarters the International Renewable Energy Agency.
Borouge is an Abu Dhabi–based petrochemicals company and a manufacturer of polyolefins. It is a joint venture of the Abu Dhabi National Oil Company and Borealis of Austria. The company was founded in 1998 and has a workforce of more than 3,100.
The Abu Dhabi National Oil Company, known by its acronym ADNOC, is the state-owned oil company of the United Arab Emirates (UAE).
Habshan is an area in the southwestern part of the Emirate of Abu Dhabi in the United Arab Emirates.
GAIL (India) Limited is a central public sector undertaking. It has the following business segments: natural gas, liquified natural gas, liquid hydrocarbon, liquefied petroleum gas transmission, petrochemicals, city gas distribution, renewable energy including solar & wind, exploration and production, GAILTEL and electricity generation. GAIL was given the Maharatna status on the 1 February 2013 by the Indian Government, a status which 11 other Public Sector Undertakings (PSUs) have.
Rabigh Refining & Petrochemical Company is a Saudi Arabia–based company which produces and markets refined hydrocarbon and petrochemicals. It was founded in 2005 as a joint venture between Saudi Aramco and Japan’s Sumitomo Chemical. The company was a joint venture between and which is now publicly held. It is traded on the Saudi Stock Exchange (TADAWUL:2380). The plant is valued at about SAR 16.71 billion and originally produced 18.4 million tons per annum (mtpa) of petroleum-based products and 2.4 mtpa of ethylene and propylene-based derivatives.
Pak-Arab Refinery Company Limited (PARCO) is a Pakistani joint venture oil and gas company active in refining, transporting and marketing petroleum products. It is a joint-venture between governments of Pakistan and Abu Dhabi.
Compañía Española de Petróleos, S.A.U., commonly known as Cepsa, is a Spanish multinational oil and gas company headquartered at Torre Cepsa in the Cuatro Torres Business Area in Madrid, Spain. It operates in several European countries as well as in Algeria, Canada, Colombia, Morocco, Brazil, and Panama. The company currently produces around 260,000 barrels per day (41,000 m3/d) and has a refining capacity in three refineries of 21 million tonnes/year.
SIBUR is a Russian petrochemicals company founded in 1995 and headquartered in Moscow.
ADNOC Gas Processing is a natural gas producing company and the largest gas processing complex in Abu Dhabi, UAE.
Suhail Mohammed Faraj Al Mazroui is an Emirati businessman and politician, who has been serving as the minister of energy in the United Arab Emirates since March 2013.
Etihad Rail DB was a heavy-rail Operations & Maintenance (O&M) service provider in the UAE. The company was set up in 2013 as a joint venture between Etihad Rail (51%), the developer of the UAE's national railway network and Deutsche Bahn (DB) (49%), Europe's largest railway operator and infrastructure owner. Etihad Rail DB was responsible for the operations and maintenance of Stage One of the UAE's national railway network for Etihad Rail’s primary customer, the Abu Dhabi National Oil Company (ADNOC). Etihad Rail DB concluded an Operations & Maintenance (O&M) Agreement with Etihad Rail in August 2013.
The Ruwais Refinery is operated by the Abu Dhabi National Oil Company (ADNOC). The complex can process up to 837,000 barrels of crude oil and condensate per day, making it the fourth-largest single-site oil refinery in the world and the biggest in the Middle East. The refinery is situated in the city of Ruwais, in Abu Dhabi’s western region. It is highly integrated with ADNOC’s other plants in the Ruwais industrial area – such as the Borouge 3 petrochemical plant.
This page is based on this Wikipedia article Text is available under the CC BY-SA 4.0 license; additional terms may apply. Images, videos and audio are available under their respective licenses.
