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MOSCOW (MRC) -- Malaysia named Wan Zulkiflee Wan Ariffin as president and CEO of state oil company Petronas from April, as per Hydrocarbonprocessing.
Wan Zulkiflee succeeds Shamsul Azhar Abbas, whose contract ends today and will serve through March 31, Prime Minister Najib Razak said in a statement via state news service Bernama today.
Wan Zulkiflee, currently Petronas’ chief operating officer and head of its downstream business, will take over the top post in a three-year term.
Petronas is facing the challenge of maintaining dividends to the government while sustaining its investment needs as oil prices slump.
Oil-related contributions make up almost 30% of Malaysia’s annual state revenue, and Shamsul had flagged sinking revenue means less ability to contribute to government coffers this year.
Shamsul joined Petronas in 1975 and held several senior management positions, including chief of shipping unit MISC Bhd.
As MRC wrote before, Petronas has pushed back the completion date for its Johor refinery-petrochemical project to 2017 as a final investment decision has been delayed. The company was expected to give the project the green light this year but had to push it back due to political uncertainty during the national elections early this year, industry sources said.
Petronas, short for Petroliam Nasional Berhad, is a Malaysian oil and gas company wholly owned by the Government of Malaysia. The Group is engaged in a wide spectrum of petroleum activities, including upstream exploration and production of oil and gas to downstream oil refining; marketing and distribution of petroleum products; trading; gas processing and liquefaction; gas transmission pipeline network operations; marketing of liquefied natural gas; petrochemical manufacturing and marketing; shipping; automotive engineering; and property investment.
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Petronas appoints new CEO from downstream business
Lukoil says lodges arbitration against Sinopec
Lukoil had signed a sale and purchase agreement for the sale to Sinopec of a 50 percent stake in Caspian Investment Resources Ltd, a company with various stakes in four hydrocarbon-production projects in Kazakhstan. The deal was announced in April 2014 when the price of oil stood at above USD100 per barrel.
Since then it has halved. Lukoil said in a statement that it considered Sinopec in breach of contract over the uncompleted deal. Sinopec was unavailable for comment on the matter. Caspian Investment Resources' fields are located mainly in the western part of Kazakhstan which supplies oil to Europe via Russia.
Lukoil's share of production through the venture was around 30,000 barrels per day in 2013. Output from various small fields that the venture controls will soon peak or has done so already.
Lukoil is one of the world's biggest vertically integrated companies for production of crude oil & gas, and their refining into petroleum products and petrochemicals. The company is a leader on Russian and international markets in its core business, which accounts for over 20% of Russian oil production and 18% of the total Russian oil refining. Lukoil also controls two of the largest petrochemical plants in Russia and Ukraine: Stavrolen and Karpatneftekhim.
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Plastics production increasing, but recycling falling behind
An article from Washington D.C.-based Worldwatch said 299 million tons of plastics were produced in 2013, a 3.9-percent jump from 2012, the environmental group said.
The plastics industry is worth about USD600 billion in annual sales each year. And the post-consumer recycling rate for Europe 2012, Worldwatch said, was 26 percent in Europe. The group also reports that 9 percent of the total plastic waste generated in the United States in 2012 was recycled.
As MRC wrote before, Europe recycled the equivalent of more than 60 billion PET bottles in 2012, according to trade industry association Petcore Europe.
Asia accounted for 45.6 percent of global plastics production in 2013 and China, alone, had 24.8 percent, the group said. North America held a 19.4-percent share and Europe and “the states emerging from the former Soviet Union” had 22.9 percent. The Middle East and Africa checked in with 7.3 percent and South America had 4.8 percent.
China, Worldwatch said, receives 56 percent of the recycled plastic imports worldwide, by weight. The article also indicates 10 million to 20 million tons of plastics end up in oceans each year.
MRC
Wacker and inpro developed new silicone adhesive for plastic oil pans
MOSCOW (MRC) -- Munich-based chemical Group Wacker, and inpro Innovationsgesellschaft fur fortgeschrittene Produktionssysteme in der Fahrzeugindustrie mbH have developed a silicone adhesive-sealant for mounting vehicle oil pans, reported Wacker on its site.
Sold under the name ELASTOSIL RT 779, the new product adheres to both aluminum and polyamide. Plastic oil pans can now be mounted without mechanical fasteners. ELASTOSIL RT 779 possesses good sealing properties and is highly resistant to oil, heat and dynamic loads. The adhesive can be applied by machine and rapidly cures at room temperature. Inpro is based in Berlin, Germany, and develops advanced production systems in the automotive industry.
Plastic oil pans for vehicles weigh much less than their steel counterparts. Thanks to ELASTOSIL RT 779 silicone adhesive-sealant from Wacker, components like these can be mounted and bonded permanently. The adhesive withstands all the various loads generated during vehicle operation and can be applied fully automatically with a two-component mixing and metering unit.
ELASTOSIL RT 779 is an advance on ELASTOSIL 76540, a silicone adhesive which was previously used for bonding both polyamide and aluminum oil pans. ELASTOSIL RT 779 outscores its predecessor in terms of processing properties, storage stability and resistance to hot engine oil under dynamic loads.
Thanks to the new Wacker product, the oil pan can now be mounted and sealed in one operation. This slashes the time needed for mounting. Compared with conventional mounting methods, far fewer bolted joints and drilled holes are needed for the crankcase.
As MRC wrote before, in 2013, Wacker Chemie AG officially launched its new production plant for ethylene-vinyl-acetate copolymer (EVA) dispersions at its Ulsan site in South Korea. The additional 40,000 tonnes from the second reactor line increases the site's EVA-dispersion capacity to a total of 90,000 tonnes per year. The production capacity of the site had, thus, almost doubled, making the plant complex one of the biggest of its kind in South Korea.
inpro Innovationsgesellschaft fur fortgeschrittene Produktionssysteme in der Fahrzeugindustrie mbH, headquartered in Berlin, is a joint venture by the companies Daimler, Volkswagen, SABIC, Siemens and Thyssen-Krupp. Its objective is to drive forward innovations in automotive production and to transfer research results to industrial applications.
Wacker Chemie AG is a worldwide operating company in the chemical business, founded 1914. The company is controlled by the Wacker-family holding more than 50 percent of the shares. The corporation is operating more than 25 production sites in Europe, Asia, and the Americas. The product range includes silicone rubbers, polymer products like ethylene vinyl acetate redispersible polymer powder, chemical materials, polysilicon and wafers for semiconductor industry.
MRC
ILIP to launch recycled PET food packaging line
MOSCOW (MRC) -- Bologna, Italy-based thermoforming plastic packaging company ILIP srl has announced that it is ready to start producing food packaging products made from 100% recycled PET, said Plasticsnews.
ILIP is the main division of the ILPA Group, which recently completed the installation of a recycled PET decontamination process. The company states that this system gained the approval from the EFSA (the European Food Safety Authority) in 2014, as a necessary prerequisite for producing packaging products designed for direct food contact compliant with regulations.
The company states that it is one of the first in Europe to have implemented a closed-loop recycled PET process, which means the recovery of the plastic is managed internally: from the washing and grinding of the post-consumer products, to the extrusion of the recycled PET material and the production of the finished products.
As MRC wrote before, PET is the largest plastic material recycled in Europe. Demand for polyethylene terephthalate (PET) bottles and recycled PET (RPET) continues to outpace supply. With additional RPET production capacity coming online recently and announcements of future expansions on the part of companies such as US Fibers and Perpetual Recycling Solutions, demand is likely to continue exceeding supply, which will affect pricing for RPET and PET bales.
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