Moody lifts LyondellBasell rating on board changes

MOSCOW (MRC) -- Moody's Investors Service upgraded its rating on LyondellBasell Industries N.V., one of the major petrochemical global producers and the world's largest maker of polypropylene, one notch further into investment grade, citing recent changes to the chemical company's board and the further decline in equity ownership by private-equity firm Apollo Global Management LLC, reported The Wall Street Journal.

Moody's lifted the company's rating to Baa2, two steps into investment grade, from Baa3. The outlook is positive.

The ratings firm said its upgrade reflects the election of an independent vice chairman who will succeed the chairman and lead the supervisory board effective in September and the decline in the equity ownership by affiliates of Apollo Management since November, as well as strong pro forma credit metrics.

LyondellBasell's new rating is supported by its size, operating diversity, extremely strong financial metrics, leading market positions in key commodities and a management team with a track record of conservative fiscal stewardship in the petrochemical industry. The company also benefits from a low-cost feedstock position in the U.S., which will help earnings and cash flow to increase over the next several years as the company completes a number of expansion projects and restarts idled capacity.

The firm said its positive outlook reflects expectations that the ownership stake held by Apollo will continue to decline, along with its disproportionate board representation.

Last week, LyondellBasell's board raised the company's quarterly dividend by 25% and approved the repurchase of up to 10% of its stock over the next 12 months, moves to increase shareholder return.

We remind that, as MRC informed previously, LyondellBasell will raise its ethylene capacity in North America by 18% in coming years through several debottlenecking projects. Locations where ethylene capacity will be expanded include crackers in Corpus Christi, La Porte and Channelview, Texas, according to the company. The projects are scheduled to be finished in 2014 and 2015.

LyondellBasell Industries NV is a manufacturing company. The Company produces chemicals, fuels, and polymers used for packaging, clean fuels, durable textiles, medical applications, construction materials, and automotive parts. LyondellBasell Industries operates globally and is headquartered in the Netherlands. LyondellBasell is also a leading licensor of polypropylene and polyethylene technologies. The more than 250 polyolefin process licenses granted by LyondellBasell are twice that of any other polyolefin technology licensor.
MRC

MOSCOW (MRC) -- Hindustan Petroleum Corp. has revived a plan to build a refinery-cum-petrochemical complex with an estimated investment of 500 billion rupees (USD8.98 billion) at Visakhapatnam in the southern Indian state of Andhra Pradesh, as per The Wall Street Journal.

The company is in talks with gas transporter GAIL (India) Ltd. and plans to tie up with foreign companies as well as local ones to set up the facility, Chairman Subir Roy Choudhury told reporters Tuesday.

The proposed refinery is expected to have a capacity of 15 million tonnes per annum, or about 300,000 barrels a day. It is part of the state-run company's plans to step up its operations to meet India's increasing energy demand.

The refinery was initially planned as a joint venture of Hindustan Petroleum, Mittal Energy Investments Pte., Total SA, GAIL and Oil India Ltd. The companies put the project on hold because of the economic slowdown.

Mr. Roy Choudhury said the company anticipates demand for fuel products to rise in India and has plans to increase its refining capacity to 42 million tonnes by 2020.

Hindustan Petroleum currently has two refineries - an 8.3-million-tonту refinery in Visakhapatnam and a 6.5-million-tonne facility in Mumbai. It also runs a 9.0-million-tonne refinery at Bhatinda in northern Punjab state in a joint venture with Mittal Energy Investment of steel tycoon Lakshmi Mittal.
MRC

MOSCOW (MRC) - In January-April 2013, the estimated consumption of polystyrene (excluding styrene plastics, including ABS) in Russia increased by 20% compared to the same period of 2012, according to a research report MRC ScanPlast.

Since the beginning of 2013 the Russian market of polystyrene (PS) styrene plastics has been growing, compare with 2012, and totaled 163,320 tonnes. In April 2013, this figure was 42,030 tonnes, up 17% from April 2012.

The main increase in consumption showed expandable polystyrene (EPS). Estimated consumption EPS in January-April 2013 totaled 54,830 tonnes, up 32% compared to 2012. This significant increase in consumption resulted from the expansion EPS production in Perm, which from the beginning of 2013 totalled 40,440 tonnes.

Despite the high growth of EPS market, the largest consumption still accounts for high-impact polystyrene (HIPS) and general-purpose polystyrene (GPPS). At the end of four months of 2013, this figure was 108,490 tonnes, up 15% higher than in 2012.

The market of HIPS and GPPS is characterized by a stable production and the growing imports. From the beginning of the year , the share of imports in the consumption increased to 27% at the beginning of 2013, compared to 21% in the beginning of 2012. In January-April 2013 there were imported 27,940 tonnes of HIPS and GPPS, which is 39% higher than in the same period of in 2012.

In May 2013 it is expected that the consumption of HIPS and GPPS and EPS made about 45,000 tonnes. In May Russian capacities were loaded to maximum, while imports have increased slightly, according to market participants.


MRC

MOSCOW (MRC) -- The Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) has charged France-based oil and gas company Total S.A. with violating the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act (FCPA) by paying USD60 million in bribes to intermediaries of an Iranian government official who then exercised his influence to help the company obtain valuable contracts to develop significant oil and gas fields in Iran, according to The Wall Street Journal.

The SEC alleges that Total made more than USD150 million in profits through the bribery scheme. Total attempted to cover up the true nature of the illegal payments by entering into sham consulting agreements with intermediaries of the Iranian official and mischaracterizing the bribes in its books and records as legitimate "business development expenses" related to the consulting agreements. Total had inadequate systems to properly review the consulting agreements and lacked sufficient internal controls to comply with federal laws prohibiting bribery.

Total, whose securities are publicly traded on the New York Stock Exchange, agreed to pay more than USD398 million to settle the SEC's charges and a parallel criminal matter announced recently by the U.S. Department of Justice.

The SEC's order requires Total to pay disgorgement of USD153 million in illicit profits and retain an independent compliance consultant to review and report on Total's compliance with the FCPA.

In the parallel criminal proceedings, Total agreed to pay a USD245.2 million penalty as part of a deferred prosecution agreement. Total also was charged today by the prosecutor of Paris (Francois Molins, Procureur de la Republique) of the Tribunal de Grande Instance de Paris for violations of French laws.

We remind that, as MRC reported earlier, French oil giant Total SA has recently approved a EUR1 billion (USD1.29 billion) project to modernize its Antwerp refining and petrochemical platform. As part of the modernization process, the company will shut down its oldest cracker and polyethylene lines at Antwerp platform.

Total S.A. is a French multinational oil and gas company and one of the six "Supermajor" oil companies in the world. Its businesses cover the entire oil and gas chain, from crude oil and natural gas exploration and production to power generation, transportation, refining, petroleum product marketing, and international crude oil and product trading. Total is also a large-scale chemicals manufacturer.
MRC

MOSCOW (MRC) -- ExxonMobil said on Thursday it has started ethylene production at a new chemical unit in Singapore after expansion, said Reuters.

With the start-up of the steam cracker, the company will increase production at other petrochemical units in the Singapore complex over the next few weeks, it said in an emailed statement. Ethylene is a feedstock for producing polymers used in plastics production.

ExxonMobil is set to become the largest petrochemicals company operating in Singapore. The company already has a 605,000bpd refinery operating on Jurong Island, as well as an existing petrochemical plant (completed in 2001, at a cost of USD2bn), which has the capacity to produce 800,000t per year of ethylene and has downstream plants to produce polyethylene and polypropylene.

The new plant is a multibillion dollar project (USD5bn-6bn) that broke ground in November 2007 (the final investment decision was made in September 2007) and was scheduled to be completed by early 2011. However, the project was delayed due to its scale and complexity.

The new plant was finally commissioned in December 2012 and the new petrochemical complex is now fully integrated with the existing refinery.

The combination of the two petrochemical plants will make Singapore one of the largest chemical-producing hubs in the world.

The new complex has a one million tonnes per year ethylene steam cracker, two 650,000t per year polyethylene units, a 450,000t per year polypropylene unit and a 300,000t per year speciality elastomers unit.

ExxonMobil is the largest non-government owned company in the energy industry and produces about 3 percent of the world's oil and about 2% of the world's energy.
MRC