Brazil judge dismisses case against Chevron and Transocean

MOSCOW (MRC) -- A Brazilian federal judge has dismissed a lawsuit against No. 2 US oil company Chevron Corp after approving a negotiated settlement, a decision that closes a nearly two-year legal battle over an oil spill in November 2011, reported Reuters.

Brazilian prosecutors sought 40 billion reais (USD18 billion) in damages from Chevron and offshore drilling contractor Transocean Ltd for a 3,600-barrel leak in the Frade offshore oil field Chevron operates northeast of Rio de Janeiro.

Prosecutors also filed criminal charges against the companies and 17 of their employees. A judge rejected those charges, but prosecutors are appealing.

The dismissal came after Judge Raffaele Felice Pirro of the federal court in Rio de Janeiro accepted an "adjustment of conduct" deal with Chevron that commits the company to spending about 300 million reais (USD135 million) in compensatory activities. Chevron and the government agencies that signed the accord said Transocean had no responsibility for the spill.

Both Chevron and Transocean welcomed the decision in short statements from their press offices. Chevron added that 95.2 million reais, or about a third of the initial settlement value, will be spent on social and environmental programs approved by prosecutors, the ANP and environmental protection agency Ibama.

We remind that, as MRC informed earlier, Chevron was cited for fines worth almost USD1 million stemming from a major fire at its refinery in Richmond, Calif. A fire broke out in a crude distillation unit (CDU) at Chevron's 245,000 bpd Richmond refinery near San Francisco, California, forcing the closure of much of the facility. The fire lasted for hours, sending plumes of black smoke over the San Francisco Bay and causing an estimated 15,000 local residents to visit emergency rooms. Chevron replaced pipes in at least one other US refinery based on a check of facilities following the August fire, since on-going investigations of the accident focused on corroded pipes found in the crude-distillation unit, where the fire started.

Chevron Corporation is an American multinational energy corporation headquartered in San Ramon, California, United States, and active in more than 180 countries. It is engaged in every aspect of the oil, gas, and geothermal energy industries, including exploration and production; refining, marketing and transport; chemicals manufacturing and sales; and power generation. Chevron is one of the world's six "supermajor" oil companies.
MRC

MOSCOW (MRC) -- Clariant, a world leader in Specialty Chemicals, has announced the grand opening of ColorWorks North America, the newest in a global network of co-creation centers built to bring color into the early stages of plastic product and packaging design, according to the company's press release.

The opening culminates nearly three years of planning and renovation and represents a major investment by Clariant in support of customers in the USA and Canada.

The new center is located in West Chicago, Illinois, USA, conveniently close to the City of Chicago and two major airports. ColorWorks North America occupies the second floor of a building that also houses a Clariant Masterbatches color compounding operation that is one of the largest facilities of its kind in the world. The plant produces masterbatches - color and/or additive concentrates used in making plastic products - in both pelletized and liquid form. This unbiased approach means ColorWorks can develop solutions in any form - pellet, liquid or even pre-colored compounds - that the customer prefers.

ColorWorks is the highly specialized color creation service of Clariant Masterbatches, tailored especially to the creative development needs of brand companies. The center in West Chicago is one of several such sites around the world that are aimed at helping companies accelerate new products to market and use color more effectively to cultivate brand recognition and value. The facility has a significant competence in packaging, but is able to serve any market, from automotive to appliance, household and consumer goods, electrical/electronic, furniture, medical, etc.

As MRC reported earlier, this summer, Clariant and Tasnee, one of the largest industrial conglomerates in Saudi Arabia, announced the signing of an agreement to establish a masterbatches joint venture in Saudi Arabia. Within the framework of the agreement, through its 100% subsidiary Rowad National Plastic Company Ltd., Tasnee will acquire a 40% stake in Clariant’s masterbatches operations in the country, already operating under the name Clariant Masterbatches (Saudi Arabia) Ltd. The joint venture will be operational following completion of customary merger control clearance procedures and will keep its main focus on the Arabic peninsulas core market.

Clariant AG is a Swiss chemical company and a world leader in the production of specialty chemicals for the textile, printing, mining and metallurgical industries. It is engaged in processing crude oil products in pigments, plastics and paints.
MRC

MOSCOW (MRC) -- With effect from 16 September 2013, the KraussMaffei Group will bring its injection moulding activities of the Netstal and KraussMaffei brands together under one roof in Italy, reported GV.

Management of the subsidiary KraussMaffei Group Italia will be in the hands of Andrea Bottelli, the previous head of Netstal's Italian subsidiary. KraussMaffei Group Italia s.r.l. in Cerro Maggiore, the location of the former Italian subsidiary of Netstal, will market all sales activities of the Netstal and KraussMaffei brands in the area of injection moulding machinery. Both brands will continue to be independently represented on the market.

The subsidiary Krauss Maffei Italiana will in future concentrate solely as a "centre of excellence" on business activities in the Reaction Process Machinery segment under the aegis of Gabriele Amodeo.

"KraussMaffei has in recent years built up a centre of excellence for Reaction Process Machinery in Abbiategrasso and is very well positioned to serve customers from the industrial white appliances sector in particular. Our aim is to further strengthen this centre of excellence under the proven leadership of Gabriele Amodeo." said Nicolas Beyl, President of the Reaction Process Machinery Segment in the KraussMaffei Group. Gianmario Bossi, who was also previously responsible for Injection moulding Machinery Sales, will in future concentrate solely on Reaction Process Machinery Sales.

As MRC informed previously, this summer, Azenco, the largest company in the construction industry in Azerbaijan, again selected KraussMaffei Berstorff as the system supplier for high-tech plastics processing machines. The order from Azenco's head office in Baku contains several twin-screw extruders in the 32D series for window profile extrusion and rubber profile extrusion machines for window and pipe seals. KraussMaffei's 17 pipe extrusion lines for producing PE, PP-R, PP and PVC pipes, as well as individual extruders for producing corrugated pipes, have been supplied to Azenco since 2010.

The KraussMaffei Group is among the world’s leading suppliers of machinery and systems for producing and processing plastics and rubber. Company's international customers come from a very wide range of industrial sectors, including the automotive, building, consumer goods, electrical, electronics, chemicals, medical and pharmaceutical industries and white goods.
MRC

MOSCOW (MRC) -- BP and DuPont announced a joint venture to retrofit an ethanol plant in Minnesota to make biobutanol, a successor renewable fuel, as per Hydrocarbonprocessing.

Highwater Ethanol licensed the technology from the companies’ venture, Butamax, for its technology to retrofit an ethanol plant. The facility will begin the first phase of commercial production, in which corn oil will be made, in the next few months, the company said in a statement.

"This is the next step in the road to commercialization," Paul Beckwith, the chief executive of Butamax, said in an interview.

The production of biobutanol, which is made from corn, is important because the company says it has lower greenhouse-gas emissions than corn-based ethanol and doesn’t present the same kind of refining issues.

Refiners such as Valero Energy say a drop in demand for gasoline means that the country is close to hitting the so-called "blendwall" of 10% mandated ethanol production.

We remind that, as MRC wrote previously, this summer, Saudi Butanol Company (Sabuco), a joint venture of local petrochemicals firms, awarded South Korea's Daelim Construction Co. a 1.1 billion riyal (USD293 million) contract to build a butanol plant. The Saudi Butanol Company, which will produce butanol to support the growth of the paints and coatings industry in Saudi Arabia, will be located at Tasnee Petrochemicals Complex. The construction of the plant in Jubail Industrial City will start in January 2014, with completion expected by May 2015. The plant will have a capacity of 330,000 tonnes a year of n-butanol, a type of alcohol used to make other chemicals, and 11,000 tonnes a year of iso-butanol.

BP is one of the world's leading international oil and gas companies, providing its customers with fuel for transportation, energy for heat and light, retail services and petrochemicals products for everyday items.

DuPont, an American chemical company, is the world's third largest chemical company based on market capitalizatio and ninth based on revenue in 2012. DuPont businesses are organized into the following five categories, known as marketing "platforms": Electronic and Communication Technologies, Performance Materials, Coatings and Color Technologies, Safety and Protection, and Agriculture and Nutrition.
MRC

MOSCOW (MRC) -- The US could surpass Russia as the world's largest combined producer of oil and gas this year, and may have done so already, said Upstreamonline.

As oil and gas production continues to skyrocket in the US on the back of unconventional forms of extraction, perennial world production leader Russia has struggled to maintain its output.

Last year, the US produced more natural gas than Russia for the first time since 1982, according the Journal's analysis of data from the International Energy Agency and the Energy Information Administration. Russia's gas-production estimates are below current US production levels of just under 70 billion cubic feet per day.

The data show that the US is also catching up to Russia in crude production. Russia produced an average of about 10.8 million barrels per day of oil in the first half of this year, just 900,000 bpd more than the US. That difference was 3 million bpd just a few years ago.

Fields in Texas and North Dakota continue to pump high volumes of crude, and North Dakota expects to double its current output by 2017. Meanwhile, oil production in Russia is expected to stay flat.

It is not clear when the US would overtake Russia, or if it already has. But if Russia's oil and gas wells produced at the same rates as they did last year, total daily US output would have surpassed them during the Northern Hemisphere summer.

It is not known how long US shale fields can continue producing, and Russia holds what is thought to be one of the world's largest shale deposits in the Bazhenov formation. And Saudi Arabia is still by far the world's biggest crude producer, though it contribute relatively little gas to the global economy.

Opec countries do not count themselves among the believers in the long-term staying power of the US as global production leader, with the organisation's leader saying this week that the US shale-oil boom will peter out by decade's end.

Still, it is a position the US could not have imagined being in just a few years ago.

MRC