Low gas prices may yet boost petrochemicals

MOSCOW (MRC) -- The Chemistry Industry Association of Canada estimates that its members' aggregated operating profit fell 21% last year, while overall sales declined 3%, or were flat in constant dollar terms, said Leaderpost.

In fact, the Canadian petrochemicals industry is short on ethane - a key natural gas component and vital ingredient for chemicals producers.

Natural gas drilling activity was down 23% in Canada, which meant the industry is short on ethane, while ethylene-based derivative units are also running under capacity.

Canadian petrochemical exports to the U.S. - its biggest market - are estimated to have fallen 9% last year, and are forecast to decline a further 4% this year as the U.S. chemicals industry rises once again.

After decades of high and volatile natural gas prices that "destroyed industrial demand," shale gas offers a new era of U.S. competitiveness that will lead to greater investment and employment, says the American Chemistry Council.

Dr. Thomas Kevin Swift, chief economist and managing director of the ACC, says the council's members are working on more than 60 projects with a value of USD43-billion in capital investment. "It is a game changer," he said.

Fixed capital expenditures over the past two years have shot up considerably, and are expected to hit USD2.7-billion in 2013, the highest investment outlay the industry has seen in well over a decade. Companies are getting innovative and importing ethane from North Dakota and Marcellus shale, and recovering off-gases from bitumen upgraders, according to CIAC.

As MRC wrote earlier, Nova's polyethylene investments are in Canada. These include a USD1-billion polyethylene project expansion near Red Deer, Alta., and a USD250-million conversion of its Corunna cracker facility in Ontario to natural gas liquids to take advantage of the low-gas environment.

Petrochemicals giant Dow Chemical Co. is so worried about losing the United States' low natural gas price advantage that it is pulling out of a USD6.5-billion proposed LNG export plant at a Texas terminal it owns partially. It even quit a manufacturing trade group last week which supports U.S. gas exports, as it fears exporting gas "indiscriminately" would lift natural gas prices.
MRC

MOSCOW (MRC) -- DuPont, the US chemical giant, has reported better results than the market expected for 2012, and was optimistic for this year even though its net profit lost almost 20% to USD2.78 billion, reported The Business Times.

As it was wrote earlier, DuPont had reported of investments that the company was making in all its divisions keep on delivering results which are offset by the weakness in titanium dioxide (TiO2) markets.

For 2013, DuPont said that sales should climb to about USD36.0 billion, but revealed that in the fourth quarter of 2012, its net profit was more than three times lower than the figure for the same period in 2011, at USD111 million.

We remind that, as MRC informed previously, earlier this year DuPont Co. struck a deal to sell its car paint business to Washington-based investment firm Carlyle Group LP for USD4.9 billion. The transaction is expected to close in the first quarter of 2013.

DuPont is an American chemical company that was founded in July, 1802. DuPont was the world's third largest chemical company based on market capitalization and ninth based on revenue in 2009. DuPont manufactures a wide range of chemical products, leading extensive innovative research in this field. The company is the inventor of many unique plastics and other materials, including neoprene, nylon, Teflon, Kevlar, Mylar, Tyvek, etc. The company was the developer and main producer of Freon used in the production of refrigeration equipment.
MRC

MOSCOW (MRC) -- Ukraine took its first major step away from dependency on Russian gas imports on Thursday when it signed a USD10 billion shale gas deal with Shell, said Upstreamonline.

The 50-year production sharing agreement, signed on the sidelines of the World Economic Forum in Davos, marks the biggest contract yet to tap shale gas in Europe and the largest foreign investment in the former Soviet republic.

Ukraine chose Shell last May as a partner to develop the Yuzivska field in the east of the country and regional councils there approved the production-sharing deal last week, removing the last hurdle to signature.

Ukraine is said to have Europe's third-largest shale gas reserves at 42 trillion cubic feet (1.2 trillion cubic metres), according to the US Energy Information Administration.

The Yuzivska field could be producing 20 billion cubic metres of gas in 2018.

Ukrainian officials said earlier this month that Shell saw investment under the deal of at least USD10 billion "under the most likely scenario" and possibly as much as USD50 billion.

The government chose Chevron to develop the Olesska field in the western Lviv and Ivano-Frankivsk regions bordering the EU.

Ukraine has also chosen an ExxonMobil-led consortium to explore for offshore gas in the Black Sea and is seeking foreign partners to help it build a liquefied natural gas terminal.

As MRC wrote earlier, Ukrainian government cut 99% of fees for the shale gas deals for the world's largest oil producer Shell, Chevron and ExxonMobil.

MRC

MOSCOW (MRC) -- Sinopec Qilu is likely to shut operations at its polypropylene (PP) plant, said Apic-online.

Located at Zibo, Shandong province in China, the PP plant has a production capacity of 120,000 mt/year.

The plant will be taken off-stream for a maintenance turnaround in April 2013 and will remain shut for around 40 days.

Sinopec Qilu Company, located in Zibo city, Shandong province, with 24.8 square kilometers area, is a super large scale refining, chemical, chemical fiber enterprise of petroleum,salt,coal,natural gas chemical.

Established in 1965 as state enterprise Sinopec Qilu produces petro-chemicals like PVC, PP, HDPE, LDPE, SBR, PA, DOP.

MRC

MOSCOW (MRC) -- Dow Chemical severed ties Friday with one of Washington's most powerful groups representing the manufacturing industry, citing differing opinions over whether the US should export its newly abundant supplies of natural gas, said Hydrocarbonprocessing.

As MRC wrote earlier, increasingly fierce battle over natural-gas exports made Dow split from the National Association of Manufacturers, demonstrating how divisive the issue has become for some of the nation's largest companies.

In a letter to NAM president Jay Timmons on Friday, and obtained by Dow Jones, Dow Chemical accuses the group of siding with member companies that are in the natural-gas industry, rather than adopt "a position of neutrality on an issue that clearly splits its membership."

Dow Chemical is responding to a statement NAM posted earlier this week in support of natural-gas exports. In it, NAM said sales of natural gas to foreign buyers would create opportunities for US businesses.

Dow Chemical, by contrast, is pushing for limits on natural-gas exports. Its chief executive, Andrew Liveris, has said unchecked exports will increase domestic prices and threaten investments in the US manufacturing sector.

"The unfettered export of natural gas is widely understood to have serious implications for the cost and volatility of manufacturing feedstock prices," Dow says in its letter to NAM. "NAM's decision therefore places the views of oil and gas producers above the interests of its manufacturing members."

ExxonMobil, another NAM member company, is proposing to build a natural-gas export terminal in Texas. It has accused Dow and other companies opposed to limitless exports of being "protectionist."

Dow Chemical spokeswoman Nancy Lamb declined to comment on the letter. But she said the company's membership in another influential group, the American Chemistry Council, "remains to be seen."

The fight between Dow, ExxonMobil and, now, the groups that represent their interests in Washington comes as US regulators consider more than a dozen proposals to ship US natural gas to countries that lack a free-trade agreement with the US.

MRC