Solvay expands dispersible silica production by 30 %

MOSCOW (MRC) -- Solvay will invest EUR 75 million to build a new 85,000 t/y highly dispersible silica (HDS) plant in Wloclawek, Poland, reported GV.

The site is located in a designated Special Economic Zone (SEZ) integrated within the industrial site of Anwil, a subsidiary of the Polish refining and energy company PKN Orlen. The completion is expected in the third quarter of 2014.

Among other HDS products, the new plant will produce Zeosil Premium, which is used in the production of energy-saving tyres and decreases fuel consumption by up to 7 %, according to Solvay. Tyre labelling regulation has led to a four-fold increase in Zeosil Premium adoption over the past year, says the company, and it expects the strong growth trend to continue.

Furthermore, Solvay announced it will also add HDS production capacity to its Qingdao plant in China, which started-up in 2010. This expansion is already underway and scheduled for completion by the end of 2013. It will elevate the capacity of the site to 112,000 t/y.

These two investments will increase the company’s global HDS production capacity by approximately 30%. Upon the completion of these projects, Solvay’s annual HDS production capacity will stand close to 500,000 tonnes.

We remind that, as MRC informed earlier, in October, 2012, SIBUR and Solvay agreed to establish RusPAV joint venture for the production of surface-active agents (surfactants) and products for the oil industry in Dzerzhinsk, Russia. SIBUR Holding already has a joint venture with Solvay/SolVin - RusVinyl situated in Kstovo district, Nizhny Novgorod region, where the complex for the production of polyvinyl chloride (PVC) with a capacity of 330,000 t/y is being built.

Solvay is an international chemicals and plastics company.
MRC

MOSCOW (MRC) -- Arkema has appointed Velox GmbH, Hamburg, Germany, as its exclusive distributor for the medical business development in Europe, according to GV.

In the North America region, Arkema continues its collaboration with Foster Corporation.

The product range includes Pebax SA 01 Med, Rilsan Med, Rilsamid Med, and Rilsan Clear Med. Pebax SA 01 Med polyether block amides find application in the production of medical tubing and angioplasty balloons. Arkema says that they have become a standard in cardiovascular devices, including percutaneous transluminal coronary angioplasty (PTCA) catheters.

We remind that, as MRC wrote previously, last year Arkema announced its 2016 ambition to become a world leader in specialty chemicals and advanced materials. With a selective and profitable growth strategy, the group targets sales of EUR8 billion and an EBITDA margin of 16% in 2016 while maintaining gearing below 40%. The group also intends to maintain its pace of development and aims to achieve sales of EUR10 billion with an EBITDA margin close to 17% in 2020.

Arkema is a leading European supplier of chlorochemicals and PVC. A subsidiary of the Arkema Group, Coatex specializes in the manufacture and marketing of flow additives used in a large number of markets. With a global presence, industrial sites in France, the Netherlands, the United States, China and Korea, and sales offices on five continents, Coatex reported sales of around EUR180 million in 2011.
MRC

MOSCOW (MRC) -- Shell will build plants in Louisiana and Canada to produce liquefied natural gas as a fuel for heavy trucks and large ships, reported Hydrocarbonprocessing.

Shell, one of the largest gas producers in the US, will build the facilities in Geismar, Louisiana, along the Mississippi River south of Baton Rouge, and in Sarnia, Ontario, on the southern shore of Lake Huron just east of Michigan.

Each plant will be able to produce 250,000 tpy of LNG by chilling natural gas to negative 260 degrees so it can be compressed into a liquid and stored in high-pressure insulated tanks.

The facilities will be relatively small compared with other natural gas liquefaction terminals around the world, such as those in Qatar, but they will represent a doubling of the liquefied-gas manufacturing capacity in the US and Canada, said James Burns, Shell's general manager for LNG fuels in the Americas.

The facilities are expected to take about three years to complete. Shell would not disclose the cost of the projects.

In early Februay, Canada's National Energy Board approved a liquefied natural gas export license for Royal Dutch Shell Plc's planned LNG export plant on British Columbia's Pacific Coast. The regulator approved exports of up to 670 million tonnes of LNG over the 25-year period covered by the license, or 3.23 billion cubic feet of gas per day. The license was given to LNG Canada Development Inc, a Shell-led consortium that includes Mitsubishi Corp, PetroChina and Korea Gas Corp.

We remind that, as MRC wrote previously, in January, 2013, Shell US Gas & Power LLC (Shell), a subsidiary of Royal Dutch Shell plc, and Southern Liquefaction Company, LLC, a Kinder Morgan company and unit of El Paso Pipeline Partners, announced their intent to form a limited liability company to develop a natural gas liquefaction (LNG) plant at Southern LNG company's existing Elba Island LNG Terminal.

Royal Dutch Shell, commonly known as Shell, is an Anglo-Dutch multinational oil and gas company headquartered in The Hague, Netherlands and with its registered office in London, United Kingdom. It is the biggest company in the world in terms of revenue and one of the six oil and gas "supermajors". Shell is also one of the world's most valuable companies.
MRC

MOSCOW (MRC) -- Egyptian group Arabiyya Lel Istithmaraat has pulled out from the race to buy the troubled Petit-Couronne refinery in northern France, a blow to France's high-profile industry minister who had personally supported its bid, said Reuters.

The refinery owned by insolvent Swiss company Petroplus is due to shut on April 16 if administrators decide that the bids submitted so far, from little-known Swiss, Libyan and French firms, do not constitute valid offers.

"This negative decision was motivated by the great complexity of this takeover within the current judiciary framework and the lack of time ... to present a viable industrial project," the group said in a statement on Friday.

The Socialist government wants to avoid the refinery's 470 workers being laid off at a time unemployment is at a 14-year high and factories including ones owned by Goodyear and carmaker Peugeot are threatened with closure.

The outcome of the bidding process is a test of credibility for Arnaud Montebourg, who lost face last year when Prime Minister Jean-Marc Ayrault overruled his threat of a state takeover of ArcelorMittal blast furnaces.

"Mohammed Metwalli, president of Arabiyya Lel Istithmaraat, appreciated the top-quality reception given by Industrial Recovery Minister Arnaud Montebourg, its staff and those of the President and the Prime Minister," the statement in French said.

Last week, two bidders - south Libyan group Murzuq Oil and Switzerland-based investors Terrae International - merged their offers.

Another contender is NetOil, led by middle-eastern businessman Roger Tamraz, whose first offer was rejected by the commercial court in Rouen, Normandy, last year.

Shell, which operated the refinery since it was opened in 1929, sold the plant to Swiss refiner Petroplus in April 2008, before Petroplus filed for bankruptcy in January last year.

As MRC wrote earlier, in December, Shell ended a six-month oil processing deal with the troubled plant and has not extended the contract, making the refinery less attractive for buyers due to expensive re-start costs.

Petroplus, one of the largest independent European refiners, was forced to file for insolvency in late January after struggling for months with weak demand due to the economic slowdown in Europe and overcapacity amid tighter credit conditions, high crude prices and competition from Asia and the Middle East.
MRC

MOSCOW (MRC) --Moody's Investors Service has today upgraded Arkema S.A.'s senior unsecured rating to Baa2 from Baa3, said Moody's in its statement.

The outlook on the rating was changed to stable from positive.

The upgrade of Arkema's rating by one notch to Baa2 follows the company's step-by-step repositioning of its operations via restructuring and the disposal of its more volatile activities, as well as its complementary acquisitions of several higher-value-added businesses in 2011 and 2012. These underlying improvements and strong integration efforts were reflected by Arkema's strong performance throughout 2012, with the company's financial and operating metrics in line with the performance of global Baa2-rated chemical peers.

Looking ahead, the Baa2 rating also takes into account Arkema's balanced growth agenda, as well as Moody's expectation that the company will achieve two-thirds of its targeted sales growth by 2016 through making ongoing investments, which are projected to begin contributing to earnings from 2014. To deliver its growth targets, Moody's expects that Arkema will continue to generate strong operating cash flows and reinvest most of it in the business. In contrast to some of its European peers, Arkema has completed most of its restructuring projects and therefore Moody's does not expect restructuring measures to weigh on the company's operating cash flow generation in the near term.

Moody's notes that challenging operating conditions at Kem One, a PVC business disposed of by Arkema in 2012, and the recently announced legal challenge to Arkema by the Klesch Group, the new owner of the assets, may result in contingent claims or credit losses on Arkema's contracts with Kem One. While the developing dispute is a credit negative, the Baa2 rating reflects Moody's expectation that Arkema will manage the developing situation with a view to protecting its financial profile (see MRC news).
MRC