Thread by @Spoonamore

A 2nd 🧵to provide context on the #Dmitrievsky #Chemical Plant, where it fits in the supply/value chain impacts it could have on that value chain. I will do a 3rd on the damage at this specific plant after getting input from friends who know this plant / type of plant

1st, thanks to all the readers who took an interest in my first reaction thread, and for the many questions that came in. 2nd this fire will not end #RussianWarCrimes or the attack on #Ukraine. It causes a large and long(?) disruption for multiple defense industry suppliers.

This plant was not a primary refinery. Those are the massive facilities which take raw crude oil or gas-Liquids mostly from huge pipelines and do first fractions. These huge plants then send traincar loads of first cuts to many places, including plants like #Dmitrievsky

#Dmitrievsky would then take tank car loads of first cuts and do very precise fractionalizing and carbon chain modifications. Roughly, they would take traincars of Gas/Petrol and split it into it's discrete chemical parts. What we call fractions.

The resulting products: Acetones, Benzenes, Toluenes, Esters etc. are discrete fractions of hyrdocarbon to further modify, filter, energize and send them onward in Drum or Tank Car scale to dozens of companies like mine who need just ONE specific fraction to make our products

Some of the resulting fractions of Volatile Organics are relatively stable (like Acetone) and can be stored and used whenever, but others, like benzo-aromatics are highly reactive and will only last a few weeks before degrading out of specification.

I am doing more homework, but this facility is the largest plant doing this in W. Russia. In the USA there are only three plants of this type/scale. There are smaller plants who do some processes. Some larger plants claim to make "almost pure" fractions but ... but they don't.

So with this plant out, dozens/hundreds of Value Add manufacturing - like I have run - have to find either replacement supply or do very risky and massive retooling to use the big guys "almost pure" fractions. That sometimes works, but at costs to quality and higher fail rates.

As I answered in some responses, RU firms now can't use Turkey, Germany, USA, Korea or Japan to try and backfill supply. But given sanctions I am guessing they have China, Kahzakstan, India mabye UAE plants as options. But ... it's not easy to change supplier.

Without getting too weedy, every fractional refiner product has chemical variations. And the specialty firms who buy from them tune their systems to optimize product based on supplier fractional profiles. This takes weeks/months to change.

So over the next 1 to 6 weeks dozens of military suppliers in RU will use up stock and either - try to backfill and retune systems (HARD), or shut down. Either way, as RU burns through war material, they will now face delays/losses/poorer product in key resupply.