Nan Ya Plastics investments drive earnings of Formosa Plastics Group

MOSCOW (MRC) -- The 4 units of Formosa Plastic Group - Nan Ya, Formosa Plastics Corp., Formosa Chemicals & Fibre Corp. and Formosa Petrochemical Corp., posted TWD 54.6 billion (USD1.83 bln) in net profit for the past six month, said Plastemart.

This shows a rise of over 30% from a year earlier. Nan Ya Plastics Corp.'s investments in the memory chip industry helped drive earnings growth at four listed subsidiaries of FPG over the past six months, as per CNA.
Over the six-month period, Nan Ya recorded TWD 19.35 bln in net profit, a huge increase of 79.1% from a year earlier.

Nan Ya said that as the global dynamic random access memory (DRAM) industry benefited from a tight supply, its investments in Nanya Technology Corp., which has turned a profit, have paid off.

In the first half of the year, Formosa Plastics posted TWD 10.93 bln in net profit, up 27.1% from a year earlier, while Formosa Chemicals & Fibre's net profit fell 24.8% from a year earlier to TWD 9.16 bln. During the same period, Formosa Petrochemical registered TWD 15.19 billion in net profit, up 49.3% from a year earlier.

As MRC wrote before, Formosa Plastics Corp, the nation’s largest producer of polyvinyl chloride, said that it is considering building a factory to make 1.2 million tonnes of ethylene a year in the US state of Louisiana, using shale gas. The company did not disclose how much it might invest because it needs to conduct further studies to evaluate the project.

Formosa Petrochemical is involved primarily in the business of refining crude oil, selling refined petroleum products and producing and selling olefins (including ethylene, propylene, butadiene and BTX) from its naphtha cracking operations. Formosa Petrochemical is also the largest olefins producer in Taiwan and its olefins products are mostly sold to companies within the Formosa Group. Among the company's chemical products are paraxylene (PX), phenyl ethylene, acetone and pure terephthalic acid (PTA). The company's plastic products include acrylonitrile butadiene styrene (ABS) resins, polystyrene (PS), polypropylene (PP) and panlite (PC).
MRC

MOSCOW (MRC) -- Westlake Chemical Partners LP (the "Partnership"), a Westlake company, has announced the commencement of its initial public offering of 11,250,000 common units representing limited partner interests in the Partnership, at an anticipated initial public offering price between USD19.00 and USD21.00 per common unit, pursuant to a registration statement on Form S-1 previously filed with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (the "SEC"), as per the company's press release.

The Partnership also expects to grant the underwriters a 30-day option to purchase up to an additional 1,687,500 common units. The Partnership has been approved to list its common units on the New York Stock Exchange (NYSE) under the symbol "WLKP," subject to official notice of issuance.

The common units being offered represent an approximate 44.3% limited partner interest in the Partnership (or an approximate 47.8% limited partner interest if the underwriters exercise in full their option to purchase additional common units). Westlake Chemical Corporation and its affiliates will own the remaining approximately 55.7% limited partner interest in the Partnership (or approximately 52.2% limited partner interest if the underwriters exercise in full their option to purchase additional common units), the general partner of the Partnership and the Partnership's incentive distribution rights.

Barclays and UBS Investment Bank will act as joint book-running managers and structuring agents for the offering. BofA Merrill Lynch, Morgan Stanley and Deutsche Bank Securities will also act as joint book-running managers. Goldman, Sachs & Co., J.P. Morgan and Wells Fargo Securities will act as co-managers for the offering.

As MRC reported earlier, in early May 2014, Westlake Chemical Corporation announced that one of its wholly owned subsidiaries, Westlake Chemical Partners LP, had filed a Registration Statement on Form S-1 with the US Securities and Exchange Commission ("SEC") relating to its proposed initial public offering of common units representing limited partner interests.

Westlake Chemical Partners LP is a limited partnership formed to operate, acquire and develop ethylene production facilities and related assets. It is headquartered in Houston, Texas.
MRC

MOSCOW (MRC) -- French company Technip, Europe’s largest oilfield-services provider by market value, has warned that energy companies are "putting pressure" on suppliers to lower costs and said profit margins may be trimmed by Russian sanctions, reported Hydrocarbonprocessing.

"There is greater uncertainty for all players," CEO Thierry Pilenko said on a conference call after the Paris-based company reported a decline in second-quarter earnings. "Some of our customers are taking a much slower and more combative approach."

Technip, which supplies equipment and builds installations for oil and natural-gas producers, had until now maintained orders were strong even as some companies reduced investment and pledged to lower costs.

With Total, Royal Dutch Shell and Chevron among Technip’s clients that plan to rein in spending, Pilenko acknowledged contracts could be fewer and harder to win.

As MRC informed before, in May 2014, Technip was awarded a front-end engineering design contract with Shell for work on a demonstration project in Scotland. The company will design a number of onshore elements for the Peterhead Gas Carbon Capture and Storage project in Aberdeenshire. The project is designed to capture, compress and transport 1 million tonnes of carbon dioxide per year via a pipeline to an offshore gas reservoir for storage below the North Sea.

Technip changed financial targets for this year, raising the outlook for margins in the subsea division and lowering it for the onshore-offshore section, in part due to uncertainty about how sanctions on Russian companies could affect the Yamal LNG project in Arctic waters.

Second-quarter net income declined to EUR158 million (USD213 million) from EUR162.4 million a year earlier, the company said in an earnings statement. That beat the EUR154.1 million-euro average of 15 analyst estimates compiled by Bloomberg.
MRC

MOSCOW (MRC) -- US oil firm ExxonMobil, operator of a USD19 billion liquefied natural gas (LNG) project in Papua New Guinea, said the development is producing at full capacity after starting ahead of schedule earlier this year, reported Hydrocarbonprocessing.

The milestone follows an increase in output in the last few months, Exxon’s PNG unit said Monday in an e-mailed response to questions.

The plant was expected to be operating at full capacity by the end of 2014, according to a report last week from Citigroup.

The project in the Pacific nation with partners including Oil Search and Santos is targeting an increase in Asian demand for natural gas. The companies are considering an expansion of the development after shipments began from the initial phase in May.

The first stage has a capacity of 6.9 million tpy of LNG. The development has long-term contracts with Tokyo Electric Power Co., CPC Corp. of Taiwan, Osaka Gas Co. and China Petroleum & Chemical Corp.

Beveridge said he expects Oil Search’s production for the year to be toward the high end of the company’s forecast of 17 million to 20 million bbl of oil equivalent.

As MRC wrote previously, ExxonMobil is in talks with state-run Turkish Petroleum Corporation over a venture to explore for shale gas in the country's southeast and northwest regions.

ExxonMobil is the largest non-government owned company in the energy industry and produces about 3% of the world's oil and about 2% of the world's energy.
MRC

MOSCOW (MRC) -- PTT Global Chemical (PTTGC) is likely to shut its I4-No.2 cracker for maintenance turnaround, as per Apic-online.

A Polymerupdate source in Thailand informed that the cracker is planned to be shut in late September 2014. It is likely to remain off-stream for around one month.

Located at Map ta Phut, Thailand, the cracker has a production capacity of 400,000 mt/year.

As MRC wrote previously, PTTGC shut its linear low density polyethylene (LLDPE) plant for maintenance turnaround, in mid-July 2014. It is likely to remain off-stream for around three weeks. Located at Map Ta Phut, Thailand, the plant has a production capacity of 400,000 mt/year.

As MRC reported earlier, last year, Indonesian state-owned energy company Pertamina signed an agreement to purchase petrochemical products from Thailand’s 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 (PE) and polypropylene (PP) products each month to Pertamina for sale in Indonesia.

Recently, Pertamina and PTTGC have announced that they would start joint shipments of PE to the Indonesian market from 1 July 2014. However, they will postpone their shipments to Indonesia till August.

PTT Global Chemical is a leading player in the petrochemical industry and owns several petrochemical facilities with a combined capacity of 8.45 million tonnes a year.
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