Shell plans to sell its downstream businesses in Italy

MOSCOW (MRC) -- Shell is considering the sale of its retail, aviation, and supply and distribution downstream businesses in Italy, reported Hydrocarbonprocessing with reference to the company's announcement.

Shell’s non-service station lubricants and marine businesses are not part of this announcement, the company added.

The announcement also has no impact on the upstream and gas and power businesses in Italy, as Shell said these businesses present strong growth opportunities.

The potential sale is consistent with Shell’s strategy to concentrate its global downstream businesses where it can be most competitive, according to company officials.

Recent examples include the sale of refineries in the UK and Germany and downstream businesses in Finland and Sweden, as well as the establishment of joint ventures in Brazil and across Africa.

Shell noted that Italy remains an important country for its business.

We remind that, as MRC wrote previously, in February Royal Dutch Shell took a final investment decision to increase production capacity at its Singapore petrochemical plant to meet demand for specialized materials used in the automotive and furniture industries. The upgrade will increase the plant's capacity to produce polyols -- industrial chemicals used to make high-quality foams -- by more than 100,000 tpy to 360,000 tpy. The project is expected to be completed in 2014.

Royal Dutch Shell plc 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 vertically integrated and is active in every area of the oil and gas industry, including exploration and production, refining, distribution and marketing, petrochemicals, power generation and trading.
MRC

MOSCOW (MRC) -- Sika AG (SIK), the world’s largest maker of construction chemicals, said it’s betting on a rebound in revenue later this year after colder-than-average weather in March in Europe and North America held back building projects, said Businessweek.

First-quarter sales fell 1.1% to 1.04 billion Swiss francs (USD1.12 billion) from 1.06 billion francs a year earlier, the Baar, Switzerland-based company said in a statement. Currency movements reduced revenue by 0.9%.

"Sika assumes that the construction projects held up by the wintry weather will get back on track and be brought to completion," the company said.

March weather in the U.K. was the second coldest on record, according to the Met Office, and temperatures in France averaged 1.3 degrees Celsius colder than usual in March, according to that country’s Agriculture Ministry. Swiss companies are also grappling with the effects of a rising franc on exchange markets amid a recession in neighboring countries using the euro.

Sika’s figures "could drive consensus down by 1% for this year and beyond," Patrick Laager, an analyst at Credit Suisse AG in Zurich, said in a note to clients. "Adding external growth is part of Sika’s strategy. We hope that management may be more active on this front this year."

Chief Executive Officer Jan Jenisch dropped a mid-term annual sales-growth target of as much as 10% on Feb. 28, citing a "continuing uncertain situation" in Europe. The maker of Sikaflex sealant today reiterated a revenue-increase target of 4% to 6% for 2013.
MRC

MOSCOW (MRC) -- Shell announced new investments at its Singapore site that will add to its portfolio of world-class manufacturing facilities and boost its chemicals footprint in Asia. The company has taken a final investment decision to build new petrochemicals production units on Jurong Island to supply customers in the region, said Shell.

The new investments include a high-purity ethylene oxide (HPEO) purification column with an initial capacity of 140,000 tonnes per annum (tpa) and two world-scale ethoxylation units with a combined capacity of 140,000 tpa. These will add to Shell’s existing capacities for HPEO (65,000 tpa) and alcohol ethoxylates (40,000 tpa) from the company’s 2010 acquisition of its partner’s shares in Ethylene Glycols (Singapore) Private Limited. The new investments also include associated facilities, such as product tanks and a HPEO pipeline grid. The pipelines will deliver HPEO to new and potential "over-the-fence" customers, some of whom have already signed up with Shell and are building facilities nearby.

Official groundbreaking took place today for these new plants, as well as for the upgrading of Shell’s polyols production facility, announced in February 2013.

Graham van’t Hoff said, "The demand for alcohol ethoxylates in Asia is expected to increase at approximately 6-7% annually over the next five years. The key driver for this is the move by consumers from laundry powder and soap bars to liquid detergent and liquid soaps, especially in major markets like China, India and South-east Asia. Shell is one of a few global suppliers of HPEO and alcohol ethoxylates - we are expanding to meet the growing needs of our existing and new customers."

HPEO, derived from ethylene oxide (EO), is used in a wide range of household and industrial applications. Its largest outlet is the ethoxylation industry, which processes HPEO and alcohol into alcohol ethoxylates. These are key ingredients for a variety of products, such as detergents and personal care items like shampoo and body wash. Feedstock for the new HPEO plant will come from Shell’s world-class ethylene oxide/mono-ethylene glycol plant on Shell Jurong Island, which is integrated with the company’s ethylene cracker through to its largest fully-owned refinery on Pulau Bukom.

Royal Dutch Shell plc 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 vertically integrated and is active in every area of the oil and gas industry, including exploration and production, refining, distribution and marketing, petrochemicals, power generation and trading.
MRC

MOSCOW (MRC) - In the first quarter of the year, imports of PVC exceeded 30,000 tonnes, up by half year-on-year, according to MRC DataScope.

Such a significant increase in imports was due to the outage at Karpatneftekhim (Lukoil group) - the domestic PVC producer.

In March, imports of suspension PVC (SPVC) to Ukraine rose to 11,700 tonnes. As expected, last month, American resin accounted for the main increase in PVC imports. In March, supply of North American suspension PVC rose to the level of 7,200 tonnes from 3,800 tonnes in February.

Amid low export PVC prices in the USA in November-December, Ukrainian companies were actively purchasing inexpensive raw materials in anticipation of a seasonal increase in demand for finished products made of PVC.

In March, a high level of export PVC prices in Europe and large purchases from the USA led to a decrease in shipments of the European polymer. In March, imports of suspension polyvinyl chloride from Europe amounted to 4,600 tonnes from 5,100 tonnes in February.

The Ukrainian SPVC maker Karpatneftekhim (Lukoil group) has been idle since September 2012. The outage of the plant was a forced one and due to the adverse economic and business performance of the producer. The Ukrainian government and Lukoil are in the process of signing a memorandum on the creation of favourable conditions for the resumption of production at Karpatneftekhim. Meantime, while the local producer is shut down, imports of PVC will grow.

MRC

MOSCOW (MRC) - The U.S. Chemical Safety Board issued an urgent recommendation to Chevron Corp on Monday to check for ongoing damage to pipes and equipment at its six U.S. refineries to prevent another explosion like the Aug. 6 pipeline blast at the company's San Francisco Bay area refinery, said Cnbc.

The Safety Board, in an interim report issued Monday, said Chevron had set aside six recommendations over 10 years to increase inspection or replace the line with upgraded pipe as the refinery saw signs of the walls were thinning due to corrosion from increasing sulfur content in the increasingly diverse crude oil grades the refinery was running.

The pipeline's walls, originally a third of an inch thick, had thinned significantly in the years prior to the Aug. 6 explosion, the board said.

"The average wall thickness near the rupture location was approximately 40 percent thinner than a dime (the thinnest American coin)," the CSB wrote in the interim report. Chevron had not yet responded to requests for comment in time for this story.

The rupture occurred late on the evening of Aug. 6 as firefighters were seeking the source of a leak on the pipe, which carried gasoil away from the refinery's 245,000 barrel per day (bpd) crude distillation unit.

The pipeline rupture released a huge vapor cloud seen from miles away before igniting two minutes later. The blaze created an even larger plume of black smoke over the area. More than 15,000 San Francisco Bay area residents sought medical treatment in the weeks after the blaze for respiratory problems.

The gasoil in the pipeline was at or above the temperature at which it will ignite in the presence of oxygen when the Aug. 6 rupture occurred, the CSB said.

Eighteen workers safely escaped the vapor cloud. One worker was caught in a fire truck when the cloud ignited, but was protected by his full-body firefighting gear and was able to escape from the blaze. The fire took five hours to bring under control.

Also on Monday, the CSB, which is solely an investigative body and has no enforcement or regulatory powers, recommended Chevron report leading and lagging safety indicators at its two California refineries to federal, state and local regulatory agencies.

The board also called upon the state of California to establish a multi-agency process safety program "to improve the public accountability, transparency, and performance of chemical accident prevention and mechanical integrity programs."

The CSB also recommended that the City of Richmond and Contra Costa County strengthen process safety programs over refineries under their jurisdiction. There are four refineries in Contra Costa County.

The board recommended that federal, state and local worker safety and environmental protection agencies conduct joint inspections of refineries and chemical plants. It also recommended those agencies participate in the new safety regulation program recommended for California.

Chevron said repairs to the CDU were completed in late March and the refinery plans to restart the unit in April. The refinery has been producing motor fuels at 50% of capacity due to the CDU's shutdown.
MRC