Styron to build new North America operations center

MOSCOW (MRC) -- Styron will move its North America Operations Center into a newly constructed office building in downtown Midland, Michigan, in summer of 2014, reported the company on its site.

The new office building will house roughly 40 employees in customer service, feedstocks, finance, purchasing and supply chain. These employees are currently located in four separate buildings in Midland, both inside and outside the Michigan Operations plant site.

"Midland remains Styron’s largest location in the U.S., with 183 employees in Midland overall, including the 40 employees who will move to the new building on Ashman Street," said Jeff Denton, Vice President of Feedstocks and Corporate Services.

Styron recently signed a lease as the anchor tenant of the two-story, multi-tenant building that will be owned and operated by SSP Associates and will occupy the second floor. The building will be located on the block bounded by Buttles, Indian, Ashman and Gordon streets. Construction is set to begin this summer.

We remind that, as MRC wrote earlier, in June 2013, Styron Europe GmbH, the global materials company and manufacturer of plastics, latex and rubber, has appointed Velox GmbH, Hamburg, Germany, as the European distributor for medical product offerings from Styron. Velox, a supplier and marketer of raw materials specialties will represent products for Styron medical applications, including CALIBRE MEGARAD polycarbonate resins and MAGNUM ABS Resins.

Styron is a leading global materials company and manufacturer of plastics, latex and rubber, dedicated to collaborating with customers to deliver innovative and sustainable solutions. Styron’s technology is used by customers in industries such as home appliances, automotive, building & construction, carpet, consumer electronics, consumer goods, electrical & lighting, medical, packaging, paper & paperboard, rubber goods and tires. Styron had approximately USD 5.5 billion in revenue in 2012, with 20 manufacturing sites around the world.
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MOSCOW (MRC) -- The petrochemical complex being built in Mexico that is the product of the joint venture between the Brazilian multinational Braskem and the Mexican group Idesa, which is slated to start operations in 2015, has begun to receive the first pieces of large equipment for storing chemical products, as per Braskem's press release.

Six large tanks, two of them measuring more than 85 meters and weighing some 550 tons, were offloaded at the Port of Pajaritos and over the next few days will make the eight-kilometer trip to Nanchital, the city where the industrial complex is being installed.

By the end of this year, more than 50% of this major project is expected to be built, for which around 800 to 1,000 workers are being hired per month. By December, the construction project will boast approximately 10,000 workers.

When ready, Braskem Idesa will have annual installed production capacity of 1 million tons of polyethylene. Total investment in the project is USUSD4.5 billion, with 75% coming from Braskem and 25% from the Idesa Group.

Braskem is the leading producer of thermoplastic resins in Latin America and the US, following its purchase of polypropylene assets of Dow Chemical. The company serves 70% of Brazilian demand in PP, PE and PVC resins, but foreign resin imports have gained Brazilian market share in recent years. Brazil's annual consumption of PP is estimated at 1.4 million tons this year.
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MOSCOW (MRC) -- BP Plc, Royal Dutch Shell Plc (RDSA) and Statoil ASA (STL) are under scrutiny by the U.S. Federal Trade Commission as the agency probes whether they manipulated oil benchmarks published by Platts, reported Shell on its site with reference to a person familiar with the matter.

The FTC’s early-stage investigation into oil prices mirrors a review by the European Union, which raided the offices of the three companies and Platts in May, two people familiar with the probe said last month.

The FTC is looking at the impact possible manipulation of the benchmark could have on physical and derivative oil markets in the U.S., said the person, who asked not to be named because the matter is confidential. The agency is interviewing third parties to clarify how Platts establishes its benchmark prices. It’s not clear whether Platts is a subject of the investigation, the person said.

We remind that, as MRC reported earlier, in May European authorities raided offices of oil majors Shell, BP and Statoil in an investigation of suspected manipulation of oil prices, one of the biggest cross-border actions since the Libor rigging scandal. Authorities sharpened scrutiny of financial benchmarks around the world since slapping large fines on some of the world's biggest banks for rigging interest rate benchmarks.

The EU oil probe, which extends to undisclosed crude-derived products and biofuels, underscores how pricing in some energy markets lacks the transparency of financial products such as stocks and US corporate bonds. It also marks the third time global pricing benchmarks have drawn the regulators’ scrutiny in the past year following investigations into bank manipulation of Libor, and ISDAFix, the benchmark for the USD379 trillion swaps market.

Joaquin Almunia, Europe’s top antitrust official, said on May 28 that if oil price manipulation did take place, it would have caused "huge" damage to consumers.

Platts, the energy news and data provider owned by McGraw Hill Financial Inc. (MHFI), publishes the Dated Brent benchmark that contributes to setting the price of more than half the world’s oil.
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MOSCOW (MRC) -- Yanbu National Petrochemical Co. (Yanpet) said on Sunday its second-quarter net profit grew 3.2% on an annual basis to SR671 million (USD179 million) due to lower financial charges, despite a fall in its sales, said Gulfbase.

The company, a unit of Saudi Basic Industries Corp., one of the world's largest petrochemical companies, said gross profit had fallen by 2.1% in the same period.

However, while sales were lower than a year ago, they were higher than in the first quarter of this year, Yanpet said in a bourse statement.

The Yanpet Expansion Project (sometimes called Yanpet 2) is a major petrochemical project located in Yanbu in Saudi Arabia, on the coast of the Red Sea. The huge project got initial approval in 1996, but did not go into operation until February 2001. The overall cost of the project was in excess of USD2.8bn.

The plant includes an ethylene plant, an ethylene glycol plant and a polymer plant. The expansion will add a second 800,000t/yr ethylene cracker to the complex, making Yanpet one of the largest and most efficient petrochemical producers with a total capacity of 1.7 million tonnes per year. This can be sold as exports, or used as a feedstock for the new 535,000t/yr polyethylene plant.

This plant ranks the Yanpet site as the largest polyethylene site in the world. The existing facilities on the site will be used to supply feedstock.

Other derivative products produced include, 410,000t/yr of ethylene glycol, 260,000t/yr of polypropylene and 125,000t/yr of pyrolysis gasoline. Together with the existing plant, this will be one of the world's largest petrochemical complexes.
MRC

MOSCOW (MRC) -- Solvay Polyamide & Intermediates is investing in the adipic acid production line at its industrial plant in Chalampe, France, according to the company's press release.

The intended capital investment aims at reinforcing cost leadership by significantly reducing the site’s energy consumption.

The investment will result in a further improvement of the adipic acid manufacturing process contributing to Polyamide & Intermediates’ strategic positioning. It demonstrates the group’s commitment to operational excellence through energy efficiency programs and carbon footprint reduction initiatives.

"This new process will result in an 8MW reduction of energy consumption per year as well as 11,000-ton reduction in CO2 emissions," points out Christophe Bertrand, Industrial Director of Polyamide & Intermediates. The intervention, which will require a complete shutdown of the manufacturing process, will take place in the fourth quarter of 2013 and will last about one month.

This project is part of Solvay Group’s initiative to achieve a EUR100M REBITDA improvement of its polyamide business by 2014. It marks the first major investment in productivity and efficiency, targeting business leadership and profitability as well as Sustainable development in line with the Group Solvay Way target.

We remind that, as MRC informed previously, last year Solvay and Russian petrochemical company Sibur signed an agreement to establish Ruspav, a 50/50 joint venture for the production of surfactants and oilfield process chemicals in Dzerzhinsk, Russia. Ruspav will be located near SIBUR's petrochemicals operations, 400km east of Moscow, and is expected to be operational in 2015.

SOLVAY Polyamide & Intermediates, headquartered in Brussels, is a major global producer of polyamide 6.6 intermediates and polymers focused on being a reliable partner to customers worldwide. P&I develops and provides polyamide 66 intermediates from HMD, adipic acid, nylon salt down to polymers through its 7 industrial plants, 3 research & development centers and 7 sales offices in the world. Thanks to its fully integrated value chain, P&I is a major player on engineering plastics, textile, industrial yarns and performance fibers markets with its long lasting polymer range Stabamid and its new intermediates product offer: Rhodiamine and Rhodiacid. In 2012 the company generated EUR12.4 billion in net sales.
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