Profits drop for Lukoil

MOSCOW (MRC) -- Russian biggest privately owned oil producer Lukoil saw its third-quarter net profit fall 12% year on year to USD3.1 billion as it was hit by higher taxes, said Upstreamonline.

The quarterly figure, compared with USD3.47 billion a year earlier, was just short of an average forecast of USD3.2 billion in a Reuters poll of analysts.

The Vagit Alekperov-led company’s revenue was up 3.5% from a year earlier at USD36.7 billion, while analysts had expected a 2% increase.

Earnings before interest, tax, depreciation and amortisation rose 0.6%to USD5.5 billion, also in line with expectations.

Free cash flow increased from USD292 million in the second quarter to USD1.6 billion in the latest quarter, according to Lukoil, the second-ranked Russian oil producer behind state-owned Rosneft.

As MRC wrote before, Karpatneftekhim (LUKOIL group) resumed polyethylene (PE) and polyvinyl chloride (PVC)production in Ukraine. The resumption of PE and PVC production will fully meet the needs of the Ukrainian market in these products.

MRC

MOSCOW (MRC) -- South African Sasol has tapped Technip of France to perform front-end engineering design work for a gas-to-liquids project in the US state of Louisiana, said Upstreamonline.

The award follows an earlier announcement that Technip had won a FEED contract for an ethylene cracker in Lake Charles, Louisiana, that will be part of the 96,000-barrel-per-day GTL facility. Technip's FEED work on the GTL plant will be carried out in Rome, Italy, which is the reference and main execution centre for the company.

The contract falls within an existing Front-End Loading alliance for GTL between Technip and Sasol - "a unique win-win example of owner-contractor collaboration", said Marco Villa, senior vice president of Technip’s Region B.

Financial terms of the contract were not disclosed. The project, to be built in the Westlake area, would be the first of its kind in the US and could rival Shell’s USD18 billion to USD19 billion, 140,000-barrel Pearl plant in Qatar.

GTL player Sasol has said the Lake Charles plant could cost between USD16 billion and USD21 billion to build. The company expects to make a final investment decision by next year. Technip calls itself one of the world's leaders in engineering major GTL facilities.

As MRC wrote before, Sasol has sold its stake in the Iran-based joint venture Arya Sasol Polymers Company. Sasol reached the agreement with Main Street 1095, a South African subsidiary of an Iranian investor. Main Street 1095 will acquire 100% of Sasol's joint venture vehicle SPI International, which holds a 50% stake in Arya Sasol Polymers.

Sasol Limited is an integrated energy and chemical company that began in Sasolburg, South Africa in 1950. It develops and commercialises technologies and builds and operates world-scale facilities to produce a range of product streams including liquid fuels, chemicals.
MRC

MOSCOW (MRC) -- Russian top crude producer Rosneft expects oil output at its projects in Venezuela, where production has been stagnant in recent years, to reach 1 million barrels per day by 2019-2020, said Upstreamonline.

Venezuela, whose economy is heavily dependent on oil production, is hoping that new projects in the Orinoco crude belt will help increase output, Reuters reported. A statement from Rosneft cited president Igor Sechin, a long-standing ally of Russian President Vladimir Putin, as saying after a trip to Latin America last week that oil production at Rosneft's joint ventures in the Orinoco belt would reach 280,000 bpd in 2016 and rise further in 2017.

"Such dynamics of assets and production development would allow us to reach the level of at least 1 million bpd in 2019-2020," Sechin is quoted as saying at a conference.

Venezuela is the world's eleventh largest crude exporter but foreign companies operating there have faced price controls and currency devaluations along with threats of nationalisation, leading several to quit the country.

Lukoil and Surgutneftegas have announced that they were leaving the consortium of Russian oil companies in Venezuela, citing a need to focus on other projects, Reuters reported.

Currently, Rosneft and Gazprom Neft are jointly working in the Junin-6 consortium developing heavy oil in the Orinoco basin. Rosneft is also involved in another Orinoco block to run, Carabobo 2.

Earlier this month, Finance Minister Nelson Merentes said that Venezuela would produce an average 3.1 million bpd of oil in 2014, roughly similar to this year. Oil exports from the country are seen at 2.5 million bpd.

As MRC wrote before, Russian oil giant Rosneft is to pump nearly USD3 billion into developing a trio of oilfields in East Siberia. The Moscow-based behemoth is to spend 92 billion rubles (USD2.79 billion) on the three fields by 2015. The field developments are set to feed into the East Siberia-Pacific Ocean (ESPO) pipeline feeding Asian markets.

Rosneft became Russia's largest publicly traded oil company in March 2013 after the USD55 billion takeover of TNK-BP, which was Russia’s third-largest oil producer at the time.

MOSCOW (MRC) -- The overall increase in production of key products from polymers in Belarus was 5.8% in January-October 2013, reported MRC analysts.

Producers of plastic windows, pipes, hoses and fittings accounted for the largest increase in production.

According to the National Statistics Committee of Belarus, the output of windows, window frames and window sills rose up to 47,100 square meters in October (an increase of 2% from September). The overall production of these products grew to 413,600 square meters in the first ten months of 2013, up by 14.2% year on year.

Last month's output of pipes, hoses and fittings from polymers dropped by 12.6% from September and amounted to about 1,100 tonnes. This figure exceeded 11,800 tonnes in January-October 2013, up by 11.5% year on year.

October output of boxes, contrainers, plastic trays rose to 65.8 million units, up by 10.2% from September. The overall production of these products from polymers was 583.1 million units in the ten months of the year, up by 8.9% year on year.

The output of reinforced polymer and non-combined films in October virtually remained at September's level and totalled about 7,300 tonnes. The overall films production exceeded 73,800 tonnes in January-October 2013, up by only 0.6% year on year.

Last month's production of plastic doors and their boxes fell to 3,600 square meters from 4,200 square meters in September. The overall output of these products dropped by 4.8% in the ten months of 2013 to 32,700 square meters.
MRC

Moscow (MRC) -- The demand for polyvinyl chloride (PVC) in Belarus increased by 20% to about 35,000 tonnes, according to MRC analysts.

Imports of unmixed PVC to Belarus grew to 4,400 tonnes in Septemer. Total PVC imports to Belarus reached 35,000 tonnes in the first nine months of the year, compared with 29,200 tonnes year on year.

The main increase in PVC imports occurred for supplies from Germany. Imports of PVC to Belarus from Germany increased more than one and a half to 17,600 tonnes in the first nine months of the year. The main supplier of German PVC is a subsidiary of a major Russian producer of window profiles.

The second largest supplier of PVC to Belarus was a Polish producer Anwil. Total imports of Polish PVC to Belarus grew to 11,800 tonnes in the first nine months of the year, compared with 8,300 tonnes year on year.

Imports of US PVC decreased to 1,900 tonnes in the first nine months of the year, from 5,100 tonnes year on year.
MRC