Arkema increases April prices of EVA copolymers

MOSCOW (MRC) -- Arkema, a France-based chemical manufacturer, has announced a EUR150/tonne price increase for its whole Evatane range (high content ethylene vinyl acetate (EVA) copolymer) from April 1, 2014 or when contracts allow, as per the company's statement.

This increase is due to rough market conditions, including the world wide unavailability of vinyl acetate monomer.

Marketed under the trademark Evatane, Arkema's EVA resins are used in highly diverse industrial applications, including hot-melt, cable, multilayer packaging film, technical polymer modification, solar panel, petroleum additives, bitumen and ink.

As MRC informed previously, following a EUR50/tonne price increase on August 1st 2013, Arkema announced a further EUR50/tonne price increase effective early September for its entire Evatane range. Both price increases, amounting to EUR100/tonne over the August and September period, were necessary following two consecutive months of raw material cost increases, while EVA market prices have significantly eroded since the beginning of 2013.

Arkema with annual revenue of EUR6.4 billion is a leading European supplier of chlorochemicals and PVC. Kynar and Kynar Flex are registered trademarks of Arkema Inc.
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MOSCOW (MRC) -- Indonesia’s state-owned energy company Pertamina will spend about USD4 billion to increase oil and gas production in Indonesia this year, said Upstreamonline.

A company executive announced the company would spend USD3.75 billion to improve oil and gas and geothermal production.

Local media reported that Pertamina’s vice president of corporate communications said the funding was 24% higher than in 2013, and would be just under half of the company’s total spend.

Total investment expenditure for 2014 has been set at USD7.8 billion. "The investment will be used to finance Pertamina’s more than 600 upstream projects this year in Indonesia as well as overseas," the company reportedly said.

The company has set its production aim at 280,200 barrels of oil per day and 1.5 million standard cubic feet of gas per day this year. Pertamina is set to boost existing production up to 220,700 bopd, while another 59,500 bopd will be made available through block acquisitions.

The company has focused in on a number of projects this year, including the development of the Offshore North-West Java wells, which is set to increase production by 5300 bopd and 27 million cubic feet of gas per day.

Six fields will also be developed in the West Madura Offshore Block and the company’s subsidiary, Pertamina EP, will drill three more wells in the Paku Gajah field. This year Pertamina posted a 97% five-year increase in net income, taking in USD3.07 billion for 2013.

This was an 11% increase in year-on-year figures, supported not only by the increase in production but the positive growth of oil and gas trading. Pertamina said it bucked the national trend of falling production, with year-on-year production jumping from 461,630 boe in 2012 to 465,220 boe in 2013.

As MRC wrote earlier, this summer, Pertamina signed an agreement to purchase petrochemical products from PTT Global Chemical. The agreement serves as a pre-marketing strategy for Pertamina and PTT’s joint Indonesian petrochemical business. Under the agreement, PTT will deliver at least 5,000 tonnes of polyethylene and polypropylene products each month to Pertamina for sale in Indonesia.

Pertamina is an Indonesian state-owned oil and natural gas corporation based in Jakarta. It was created in August 1968 by the merger of Pertamin (established 1961) and Permina (established 1957). Pertamina is the world's largest producer and exporter of liquefied natural gas (LNG).
MRC

MOSCOW (MRC) -- Jacobs Engineering Group received a contract from ConocoPhillips to provide engineering, procurement and construction services for projects across the lower 48 states of the US, said Hydrocarbonprocessing.

Company officials did not disclose the contract value, but noted that it is a three-year program with options to extend it for an additional four years.

Jacobs’ scope of work under the terms of the contract includes front end studies and engineering, procurement and construction management (EPCm) services for a range of ConocoPhillips projects.

"We are pleased to expand our relationship with ConocoPhillips by leveraging our experience and capabilities to support their business goals in the Lower 48 through this project services contract," said Jacobs vice president Chip Mitchell."

We remind that, Jacobs Engineering Group Inc. has renewed its frame agreement with Borealis for work at its facilities in Stenungsund, Sweden. Jacobs is providing engineering, procurement, project management and construction management services on a variety of projects, each of which is expected to have a total installed cost varying in range up to USD11 million.
MRC

MOSCOW (MRC) -- Total signed an LNG cooperation agreement between it and China National Offshore Oil Corporation (CNOOC), seeking to strengthen the partnership between the two companies, said Hydrocarbonprocessing.

Under the terms of an existing 15-year contract, Total has been supplying China with up to 1 million tpy of LNG since 2010.

In addition to agreeing on a price review regarding this existing supply, the parties also set a framework for an additional supply of 1 million tpy of LNG as well as further cooperation throughout the LNG value chain.

Total already supplies more than 8% of the Chinese market, with 5 million tons of LNG already delivered between 2010 and 2014. In the coming years, the group is expected to benefit from additional supply sources in Australia, Russia and the US, complementing existing Middle East and African sources, in order to respond to China’s growing LNG demand.

"As a world leader in LNG, Total seeks to strengthen its position in Asia’s growing LNG markets, where China is among the largest players with 20% annual growth," said Yves-Louis Darricarrere, president of Total's upstream business. "This new agreement allows us to expand our LNG supply and reinforces our cooperation with Chinese companies."

As MRC wrote before, Technip has been awarded by CNOOC Oil & Petrochemicals Company a contract to supply its proprietary ethylene technology and process design package for a grassroots 100,000 tpy ethylene plant in Huizhou, Guangdong Province, China.

CNOOC is a pioneer of China’s LNG industry and the third largest LNG importer in the world with 13 million tons of LNG imported in 2013. Currently, CNOOC operates 6 LNG receiving terminals in Guangdong, Fujian, Zhejiang, Shanghai and Tianjin with further terminals under construction.

Total S.A. is a French multinational oil and gas company and one of the six "Supermajor" oil companies in the world with business in Europe, the United States, the Middle East and Asia. The company's petrochemical products cover two main groups: base chemicals and the consumer polymers (polyethylene, polypropylene and polystyrene) that are derived from them.
MRC

MOSCOW (MRC) - INEOS has closed its ethylene and butadiene plants at the Grangemouth refinery and petrochemical plant in Scotland a year earlier than originally planned, saying that the plants were no longer commercially viable, said Reuters.

INEOS came to the brink of closing the refinery in a bitter industrial dispute last year, but agreed to keep the plant open after the workforce agreed to cuts to employment terms and conditions.

As part of a wider "Survival Plan", INEOS said it would close the G4 ethylene cracker and the BE3 butadiene plants, along with a naphtha cracker in 2015, but in a statement on Thursday the company said had closed the plants with immediate effect.

"Both G4 and BE3 plants are no longer commercially viable. Both facilities date from the 1960s and their closure is another key part of our survival plan," INEOS said in a statement.

A document seen by Reuters shows that BE3 will shut down on the week commencing April 7 and the G4 unit will close on the week starting April 14. The document states that the ethylene plant is losing around 1 million euros (USD1.4 million) per month.

Butadiene is the main petrochemical precursor material for rubber.

The Grangemouth site employs 1,400 people, including 700 at the petchem operations. Ineos under its ‘survival plan’ proposal was seeking to reduce the number of workers at the petchem operations by an unspecified number and make changes to the pension benefits. The proposed job cuts would not affect the refining operations, which are run by a joint venture between Ineos and PetroChina.

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.
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