Petronas and JX Nippon Oil & Energy Sign Sales & Purchase Agreement for PL9SB

MOSCOW (MRC) -- Petronas and JX Nippon Oil & Energy have signed an agreement for the sale and purchase of equity in Petronas LNG 9 Sdn Bhd, a wholly-owned subsidiary of Petronas, reported Apic-online.

Under the agreement, JX NOE will acquire a 10% in-terest in PL9SB, which owns the ninth liquefied natural gas (LNG) liquefaction train within the Petronas LNG complex in Bintulu, Sarawak, Malaysia.

The 3.6-million-t/y state-of-the-art train, expected to begin commercial operations in the first quarter of 2017, will increase capacity at the Petronas LNG complex to 30-million t/y.

The partnership aims to expand the LNG business even further and ensure a reliable supply of energy for their customers. A marketing support agreement was also signed.

As MRC informed earlier, in December 2015, Petronas awarded the Johor port operatorship for its Refinery and Petrochemicals Integrated Development (RAPID) project to Johor Port Bhd (JPB). As the port operator, JPB will manage the operations and logistics functions at the material offloading facility (MOLF) for Petronas’ Refinery and Petrochemicals Integrated Development (RAPID) project in Pengerang.

Petronas plans to build a C6-based metallocene linear LDPE plant and a low density polyethylene (LDPE)/ethylene vinyl acetate (EVA) swing plant at its greenfield integrated refinery and petrochemical complex in southern Johor state by mid-2019. The proposed metallocene LLDPE will have a capacity of 350,000 tpa, while the LDPE/EVA will have a capacity of about 150,000 tpa. The two plants are part of Petronas' planned Refinery and Petrochemical Integrated Development project in Pengerang at Johor. RAPID includes a 300,000 bpd refinery and a petrochemical complex with a 3 million tpa steam cracker, and is expected to come onstream in mid-2019. The petrochemical complex will have the capacity to produce 7.7 million tpa of petrochemical products.

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.

The Nippon Oil Corporation, or NOC or Shin-Nisseki is a Japanese petroleum company. Its businesses include the exploration, importation, and refining of crude oil; the manufacture and sale of petroleum products, including olefines (ethylene, propylene) and aromatics.
MRC

MOSCOW (MRC) -- The European PVC industry sustainable development programme - VinylPlus, recycled 514,913 tons of polyvinyl cloride (PVC) within its framework last year, according to Plastemart.

The 2015 results were presented at its 4th Vinyl Sustainability Forum 2016 in Vienna, Austria where the industry shared its major successes, notably the replacement of lead-based stabilisers in the EU-28 market.

Welcoming delegates, VinylPlus Chairman Josef Ertl said: "European cities are forerunners in the transition towards a low carbon and resource-efficient economy. 72% of the EU population lives in urban areas, using 70% of our energy. To assure quality of life, future cities will need healthy and energy-efficient buildings, reliable water distribution and sewage systems, as well as affordable healthcare. Using PVC in place of other materials reduces costs, improves product performance and makes a positive contribution to sustainable development."

Josef Ertl. Stephan Sicars, Director Department of Environment, United Nations Industrial Development Organisation (UNIDO) said: "The shift of emphasis to designing products and processes for sustainability offers the plastics and PVC industry many opportunities to capitalise on innovation, as well as consumer demands for better environmental performance and smaller environmental footprint of products. These trends are said to allow USD 3 trillion in potential resource savings by 2030 amid an emerging USD 1 trillion global ‘green’ market. A circular economy is restorative and regenerative by design. The PVC production chain is making progress globally by reducing its environmental impact in areas such as chlor-alkaline production, energy and mercury use and VCM production. In addition, there are excellent developments in different regions and in Europe, especially.

In 2015, VinylPlus recycled 514,913 tons of PVC waste - an upward recycling trend of which window profiles and related profile products accounted for around 45%. The greatest volumes - 508,154 tons - were registered and certified by Recovinyl , the PVC waste collection and recycling network comprising 177 companies Europe-wide. The target is to recycle 800,000 tons per year by 2020. VinylPlus reaffirmed its commitment to addressing the issue of ‘legacy additives’ in recycled PVC in cooperation with regulatory authorities and is calling to propose realistic solutions for the continuation and development of PVC recycling, taking into account its resource efficiency benefits."

As MRC informed before, in 2014, PVC recycling continues to grow across Europe, with the UK contributing more than 20% - or 88,648 tonnes - to the total recycled through Recovinyl, the PVC industry's recycling scheme, in 2013, said Mhwmagazine.
MRC

MOSCOW (MRC) -- Italian engineering & construction firm Maire Tecnimont SpA has entered into a joint collaboration agreement (JCA) with Siluria Technologies, reported Plastemart.

As per the JCA, Maire Tecnimont and Siluria will combine their respective technologies and expertise to bring to the marketplace a unique process to convert natural gas directly into commodity chemicals and their derivative products. “This collaboration capitalises on Maire Tecnimont’s international competencies in engineering and construction, technology licensing and new business development. We are eager to combine these core strengths with Siluria’s ground-breaking technology development platform to offer a unique, high-value solution to petrochemical customers,” said Pierroberto Folgiero, chief executive officer, Maire Tecnimont.

Erik Scher, Interim CEO and president, Siluria, added, "We are excited to expand our product portfolio by teaming with Maire Tecnimont, to enable a completely new pathway to produce additional petrochemical derivatives from natural gas. This new product offering will expand Siluria’s portfolio beyond our current solutions focused on gasoline and ethylene, to address an even larger share of the global petrochemical and energy market. Furthermore, partnering with Maire Tecnimont, a recognised leader in engineering, construction, technology licensing and new project development, provides a worldwide platform for commercialisation."

In conjunction with the signing of the JCA, Maire Tecnimont has made a minority investment of USD10 million in Siluria’s share capital through the Series E financing Round. Siluria has raised over USD40 million in equity through the Series E offering since last November.

We remind that, as MRC wrote previously, in April 2015, Maire Tecnimont S.p.A. has announced that its subsidiaries Tecnimont S.p.A. and KT - Kinetics Technology S.p.A, following the completion of Open Book Cost Estimate services activities, have reached an agreement with SOCAR POLYMER for the award relating to the realization of a polypropylene (PP) plant and relevant utilities and off sites facilities on a EPC Lump Sum basis. The plant will be located in the Sumgayit Petrochemical Complex around 30 km North of Baku, Azerbaijan. The plant will have a capacity of about 180,000 t/y (tons per year). This will be the first PP plant in Azerbaijan and will utilize the propylene feedstock coming from the existing naphtha cracker.
MRC

MOSCOW (MRC) -- The Dow Chemical Company has announced the successful completion of the transaction to restructure the ownership of Dow Corning, said the producer in its press release.

Dow is now 100% owner of Dow Corning's silicones business, which had 2015 revenues of greater than USD4.5 bln and is expected to generate more than USD1 bln of annual EBITDA for Dow at full run-rate synergies.

The transaction represents a post-synergy multiple of less than 6x EBITDA, highlighting the unique value creation to Dow shareholders from acquiring 50% of the silicones business while benefiting from 100% of the synergies.

Dow Corning's world-leading silicone position brings a complementary new chemistry and technology to Dow, with it being a hand-in-glove, strategic fit for our material sciences portfolio and based on the additional one billion of EBITDA to Dow's bottom line at full run rate synergies, which at USD400 million is the minimum we expect to achieve, this transaction is highly accretive for our shareholders.

"As an owner of Dow Corning for more than seven decades, our deep understanding of common and adjacent markets we serve will enable us to go narrower and deeper into high growth businesses where innovation is rewarded with value," said Andrew N. Liveris, Dow's chairman and chief executive officer. "By linking our two robust innovation engines, we will bring greater value to our shareholders and a wider range of differentiated, high value solutions to our customers."

Dow Corning was previously a 73-year 50:50 joint venture between Dow and Corning Incorporated. Dow and Corning will maintain their equal proportional equity interests in Hemlock Semiconductor Group, a polysilicon producer in which Dow Corning was the majority shareholder.

The highly synergistic transaction extends Dow's participation in its Consumer Solutions and Infrastructure Solutions segments, providing immediate integration into Dow's monomer and polymer value chains. It also enables Dow to provide complementary technology offerings in attractive industry segments, such as building and construction, consumer care, transportation, packaging, and electronics.

As MRC wrote before, in April 2016, the film extruder Transilwrap Co. Inc. bought the specialty films business of Dow Chemical Co. for an undisclosed price. The deal includes production plants in Hebron, Ohio, and Drusenheim, France. The business makes films based on polyethylene (PE), polypropylene (PE) and polystyrene (PS) for numerous medical and packaging applications such as beverage closer liners, ostomy bags, window envelope films, labels and protective fabrics.

The Dow Chemical Company is an American multinational chemical corporation headquartered in Midland, Michigan, United States. Dow is a large producer of plastics, including polystyrene, polyurethane, polyethylene, polypropylene, and synthetic rubber.
MRC

MOSCOW (MRC) -- Negotiations over June prices of Russian polyvinyl chloride (PVC) finished this week. Producers managed to achive a further price increase of Rb1,000-1,500/tonne, according to ICIS-MRC Price report.

Negotiations over June prices of Russian suspension PVC (SPVC) for the domestic market started last week, but some producers were in no hurry to discuss deals. Negotiations had virtually been fully completed by the end of this week, producers achieved the price rise of Rb1,000-1,500/tonne from May.

Angarsk polymer plant has postponed the launch of its ethylene production for, at least, a month after the forced shutdown in mid-February because of the equipment failure. As a result, the start-up of PVC production at SayanskKhimplast is delayd for the same period (the plant is totally dependent on ethylene supply from Angarsk Polymer Plant, and was also forced to take off-stream its production capacities). Thus, the Sayansk plant will not begin producing resin until July, whereas previously, it was assumed that this would happen in the second half of June.

The outage at SayanskKhimplast, Russia's second-largest PVC producer, did not lead to an acute shortage in the market. This factor was partially offset by weak demand for resin and higher imports. But, nevertheless, there has been still tight supply of PVC supply in some segments, particularly, of resin with constant K = 70, since April. The shutdown at the Sayansk plant was one of the reasons for the further price increases.

Negotiations over June contract PVC prices with constant K = 64/67 were held in the range of Rb73,500-77,000/tonne CT Moscow, including VAT. Negotiations over resin with K = 70 were held in the range of Rb75,500-78,000/tonne CPT Moscow, including VAT.

The market situation was aggravated by a temporary outage for maintenance at Kaustik (Volgograd). The plant shut down its capacities for a scheduled turnaround on 16 May, PVC production is planned to be resumed on 6 June. The plant's annual production capacity is 90,000 tonnes.
MRC