Ukrainian PC market decreased by 20% in January-February 2015

MOSCOW (MRC) - Imports of polycarbonate (PC) granules to Ukraine decreased to 365 tonnes in January-February 2015, down 20% compared to the same period last year, according to a MRC DataScope report.

Ukraine has imposed additional import duties since 1, March. So, if earlier rate of duty on PC was 0%, now it is 5%. Traders said, buyers took imports duties calmly. This factor does not affect the operation of large-scale converters.
However, this will make additional difficulties for small companies and will reduce their demand for PC. Some plants are looking for polymeric analogues PC at more affordable prices.

Some market participants said that Ukrainian government restricts the supply of products (mainly injection moulding) made from PC to the Russian market, which is an important market for domestic converters.

Imports of extrusion PC is expected to be resumed in spring, along with slight increase in the demand for bottle grade PC. Despite the tendency of downtrend of PC and its feedstock prices in Europe, import prices for Ukraine remained steady.

MRC

MOSCOW (MRC) -- Solvay said it agreed to sell some assets to chemical holding company ICIG, as part of a deal with the European Commission to get its PVC joint venture with Switzerland-based INEOS cleared, said the companies in the statements.

Solvay said the sale included plants in Belgium, France, the Netherlands, Germany and Britain but did not give any financial details.

The joint venture between Solvay and Ineos, with estimated sales of 4.3 billion euros (USD4.61 billion), will be the world's second-biggest PVC producer after Japan's Shin-Etsu.

The European Commission, which acts as the competition watchdog in the European Union, cleared the deal in May 2014, stipulating that the two groups had to divest certain assets to allay competition concerns.

Solvay S.A. is a Belgian chemical company founded in 1863, with its head office in Neder-Over-Heembeek, Brussels, Belgium. The company has diversified into two major sectors of activity: chemicals and plastics. Solvay supplies over 1500 products across 35 brands of high-performance polymers – fluoropolymers, fluoroelastomers, fluorinated fluids, semi-aromatic polyamides, sulfone polymers, aromatic ultra polymers, high-barrier polymers and cross-linked high-performance compounds.

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.
MRC

MOSCOW (MRC) -- Fluor has secured a contract from the State Oil Company of Azerbaijan Republic (SOCAR) to provide project management contractor services on its USD17bn oil and gas processing and petrochemical complex (OGPC) near Baku, Azerbaijan, said the company in its press release.

Planned to be built 60km south-west of Baku, the proposed OGPC will feature multiple interfaces between process units, utilities and offsite facilities, as well as gas processing and petrochemical plants.

The complex will have a gas processing plant with annual capacity of around 12 billion cubic metres per annum, a refinery with up to nine million tonnes a year crude distillation capacity and petrochemical plant with annual capacity of 1.1 million tonnes.

"The complex will have a gas processing plant with annual capacity of around 12 billion cubic metres per annum."
Under the contract, Fluor will manage future contractors for the project, including engineering, procurement, construction, commissioning and start-up of gas processing and petrochemical plants, including associated offsite facilities.

Fluor Europe, Africa and Middle East energy and chemicals president Taco de Haan said: "Fluor is proud to be selected by SOCAR as the project management contractor on this unique, world-scale project.
"Fluor has demonstrated expertise in managing downstream megaprojects that will allow us to deliver the project on schedule while meeting safety, quality and cost objectives."

The company's office in Farnborough, UK, will manage the work under the contract. In the UK, Fluor serves energy, chemicals, government, industrial, infrastructure, mining and power sectors.

As MRC informed before, SOCAR last year said the complex would not be completed until 2030 – four years later than originally planned – because of a lack of capital. The state-held group said it had requested a 10-year loan worth nearly USD1bn from the Azeri central bank to help get the construction of OGPC under way.

Building for the first phase of the project – which includes an 800,000 tonne/year polyethylene (PE) plant and a 300,000 tonnes/year polypropylene (PP) installation – was expected to start late this year, SOCAR said, with completion pencilled in for 2020.

Fluor Corporation is a global engineering and construction firm that designs and builds some of the world's most complex projects. The company creates and delivers innovative solutions for its clients in engineering, procurement, fabrication, construction, maintenance and project management on a global basis. For more than a century, Fluor has served clients in the energy, chemicals, government, industrial, infrastructure, mining and power market sectors. Headquartered in Irving, Texas, Fluor ranks 109 on the FORTUNE 500 list. With 40,000 employees worldwide, the company's revenue for 2014 was USD21.5 billion.

The State Oil Company of Azerbaijan Republic (SOCAR) is a wholly state-owned national oil company headquartered in Baku, Azerbaijan. It is one of the largest O&G corporations in the world. The company is involved in production of oil and natural gas from both onshore and offshore fields in the Azerbaijani section of the Caspian Sea.
MRC

MOSCOW (MRC) -- China's largest oil refiner China Petroleum & Chemical Corp. or Sinopec reported that its profit attributable to equity shareholders of the Company for the year ended 31 December 2014 was RMB 46.5 billion, down 29.7% from RMB 66.1 billion in the prior year, said Rttnews.

Earnings per share were RMB 0.397 compared to RMB 0.53 in the prior year.

Operating profit was RMB73.5 billion, down 24.1% year-on-year.

In accordance with the International Financial Reporting Standards or IFRS, in 2014, the Company's turnover, other operating revenues and other income was RMB 2.83 trillion, down 1.9% year-on-year, mainly due to the price decline of crude oil and petrochemical products.

The 2015 world economy is expected to continue its slow recovery while the company expects the global crude oil price to remain weak for the foreseeable future. Consequently, the crude oil price realised by the Company will continue to experience decline in the first quarter of 2015, and the Company is digesting high inventory cost. It is expected that net profit attributable to shareholders of the Company will be in the vicinity of breakeven point for the first quarter of 2015.

Its ethylene production in 2014 reached 10.7m tonnes, up by 7.2% over 2013.

As MRC informed before, Sinopec Zhenhai is in plans to shut a high density polyethylene (HDPE)/linear low density polyethylene (LLDPE) swing plant for maintenance turnaround. The plant is likely to be shut in April 2015. It is expected to remain off-stream for around two months. Located at Ningbo in China, the plant has a production capacity of 450,000 mt/year.

China Petrochemical Corporation (Sinopec Group) is a super-large petroleum and petrochemical enterprise group established in July 1998 on the basis of the former China Petrochemical Corporation. Sinopec Group's key business activities include the exploration and production of oil and natural gas, petrochemicals and other chemical products, oil refining.
MRC