Shell appoints John Abbott as Downstream Director

MOSCOW (MRC) -- Royal Dutch Shell plc, an international gas and oil major, has announced the appointment of John Abbott as Downstream Director with effect from October 1, 2013, according to the company's press release.

In his new role, Mr Abbott will become a member of the Company’s Executive Committee and will take over from Ben van Beurden who, as previously announced, becomes Chief Executive Officer with effect from January 1, 2014.

John is a British national and currently Executive Vice President Manufacturing, responsible for some 30 oil refineries and petrochemicals plants world-wide. He joined Shell in 1981, and has held a variety of management positions in refining, chemicals and upstream heavy oil, working in the United Kingdom, Singapore, Thailand, the Netherlands, Canada, and the United States.

As MRC informed previously, Ukraine took its first major step away from dependency on Russian gas imports when it signed a USD10 billion shale gas deal with Shell in early 2013.

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) -- ELIX Polymers, the Spain polymer producer, has announced a necessity to increase prices of ELIX brand acrylonitrile-butadiene-styrene (ABS), according to the company's press release.

The company explained the present price rise by the additional raw material increases in September. Therefore, the company was forced to raise its ABS prices, which come into effect on 15 September, 2013, as follows:

- ELIX ABS - by EUR100/tonne;
- ELIX 100 series - by EUR60/tonne;
- ELIX 200 series - by EUR90/tonne.

As MRC informed previously, Styrolution sold its Tarragona, Spain acrylonitrile butadiene styrene (ABS) plant under a previously announced plan. The facility, operating under the name Elix Polymers, was acquired by private equity firm Sun Capital Partners, Gualdoni says.

ELIX Polymers, S.L. is a strong engineering plastics player with more than 35 years experience in precoloured ABS and ABS specialties. In addition to ABS, ELIX Polymers, S.L. offers its product line of high-quality polymer modifiers, mainly based on acrylonitrile-butadiene-styrene (ABS) and styrene-acrylonitrile (SAN) copolymers employed to improve performance of engineering plastics & PVC compounds.
MRC

MOSCOW (MRC) -- Solvay and Ineos Group Holdings, which plan to merge their European vinyl chloride assets in a EUR4.3 billion (USD5.7 billion) deal, may sell a German site to help win regulatory approval, according to people familiar with the matter, said Bloomberg.

Ineos’s site in Schkopau, with the capacity to make about 150,000 tons of PVC a year, may fetch about 60 million euros, said two of the people, who asked not to be identified because the plan is not public. The two companies are putting together a proposal that may be delivered to European Commission regulators this month in order to divest the plant this year, they said.

The merger of their vinyl chloride assets, announced in May, may allow the companies to cut costs in areas from transport to marketing and raise profitability at a commodity business suffering from inflated raw material and energy costs. The PVC industry is facing overcapacity and weak demand in Europe, contrasting with shortfalls in markets like India.

"We are making good progress in the planned creation of our chlorovinyls joint venture," Lamia Narcisse, a Solvay spokeswoman, said in an e-mail. "It is possible that the European Commission will require us and Ineos to divest some plants in order for them to grant clearance."

The two companies are looking at what remedies the commission may demand and the viability of each option, Narcisse said in an e-mail. Ineos declined to comment.

Solvay S.A. is a Belgian chemical company founded in 1863, with its head office in Neder-Over-Heembeek, Brussels, Belgium. The company has diversified into two major sectors of activity: chemicals and plastics. Solvay supplies over 1500 products across 35 brands of high-performance polymers – fluoropolymers, fluoroelastomers, fluorinated fluids, semi-aromatic polyamides, sulfone polymers, aromatic ultra polymers, high-barrier polymers and cross-linked high-performance compounds.

INEOS Group Limited is a privately owned multinational chemicals company consisting of 15 standalone business units, headquartered in Rolle, Switzerland and with its registered office in Lyndhurst, United Kingdom. It is the fourth largest chemicals company in the world measured by revenues (after BASF, Dow Chemical and LyondellBasell) and the largest privately owned company in the United Kingdom.
MRC

MOSCOW (MRC) -- Karpatneftekhim (LUKOIL group) resumed polyethylene production, LUKOIL informed.

The plant was under shutdown from Sep. 2012 due to the unfavourable situation on the petrochemical market. In Apr. 2012 the memorandum of cooperation was signed by LUKOIL and Ukraine government. The wide-scale modernization of the equipment was completed in 2011 which permits now to produce 250ths ton of ethylene and 100ths ton of polyethylene per year.

The memorandum had been prescribed a number of conditions for the resumption of the Karpatneftehim's operation.
The main ones are: VAT refund in full, non-excise import of petroleum products for the production of ethylene and introduction of duties on imported unmixed PVC of 6.5%.

Ukranian government partially fulfilled Karpatneftekhim's requirements. The laws considering non-excise import of petroleum products and introduction of duties on imported unmixed PVC are expected to be adopted on 1 January 2014.

By now there was restarted only 100,000 tonnes/year unit for production of high-density polyethylene (HDPE) by using of imported ethylene from Hungary.

The data of other productions restart (ethylene, caustic soda, polyvinyl chloride) LUKOIL did not disclosed yet.

Only a third of Karpatneftekhim's HDPE was supplied to the domestic market. The remaining volumes are delivered for the export to Russia, Belarus and Turkey.

Given a stable operation the plant will be able to Ukraine's HDPE imports by one third; the capacity of HDPE market in Ukraine is 140,000 tonne.

According to the MRC Karpatneftekhim produced about 102,700 tonnes of HDPE and 83,800 tonne of suspension PVC in 2011. Karpatneftekhim produced about 73,500 tonnes of HDPE and 121,600 tonnes of PVC in the nine months of 2012.

MRC

MOSCOW (MRC) -- "Angarsk polymer plant" (part of Rosneft, Angarsk) resumed polyethylene (PE) production after a long outage for maintenance, according to MRC Price report.

On Tuesday, 10 September, "Angarsk polymer plant" resumed production of low density polyethylene (LDPE) after a 50-day shutdow for a scheduled turnaround.

The plant's annual PE production capacity is 77,000 tonnes. The overall LDPE output totalled 25,200 tonnes in seven months of 2013.

Angarsk Polymer Plant was established in 1974 as part of PO "Angarsknefteorgsintez" (now OAO "ANhK") in Angarsk. Prior to September 23, 1997, the company was called as "Polymer Plant OAO ANhK", and from 1 October of 1997, the polymer plant was withdrawn from the structure of "ANhK" and transformed into an independent subsidiary OAO "Angarsk polymer plant." Since 10 May, 2007, "Angarsk polymer plant" has been part of the "NK" Rosneft ".
MRC