Arkema successfully completes a EUR200 million tap of its 2027 bond

MOSCOW (MRC) -- Arkema has successfully completed a EUR200 million tap of its bond maturing on 20 April 2027, increasing the nominal amount of the bond to EUR900 million, as per the company's press release.

The bond bears a coupon of 1.50%.

This operation, which is carried out as part of the Group’s long-term financing policy, enables Arkema to continue to take advantage of favorable market conditions to refinance and extend the average maturity of its financial resources.

As MRC informed before, in early March 2017, Arkema completed the sale to INEOS of its 50% stake in Oxochimie, their oxo alcohols manufacturing joint venture, and of the associated business.

Arkema is a leading European supplier of chlorochemicals and PVC. Kynar and Kynar Flex are registered trademarks of Arkema Inc.
MRC

Formosa Plastics plans to restart multiple units at Texas over long holiday weekend

MOSCOW (MRC) -- Formosa Plastics, part of Formosa Petrochemical, expects to restart multiple units at its Point Comfort, Texas, complex over the long Fourth of July holiday weekend following an unplanned outage, as per Plastemart.

The outage began Saturday after lightning struck a transformer, causing a power outage at a pair of olefins units, as well as the polyethylene, polypropylene, ethylene glycol and chlor-alkali plants, sources said.

Formosa could not immediately provide comments. A source with knowledge of company operations said the shutdown was having an impact on production at the site, with the outage expected to last 7 to 10 days.

The Point Comfort complex, Formosa's largest in the US, is located about 90 miles from Corpus Christi on the Texas Gulf Coast. Formosa's steam crackers produce about 3.3 mln mtpa of olefins at Point Comfort. The complex can produce almost 1.5 mln mtpa of high density polyethylene, 582,000 m tpa of linear low-density polyethylene, 1.9 mln mtpa of polypropylene (PP) and 736,000 m tpa of chlor-alkali.

As MRC reported earlier, in 2015, Formosa Plastics Corporation, U.S.A. announced that it would build a new, state-of- the-art PP production line at its Point Comfort, Texas site. This will be the first new PP production to be built in the US in many years.

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

Petrochemicals Malaysia to shut its PS plant for maintenance

MOSCOW (MRC) -- Petrochemicals Malaysia, a subsidiary of Idemitsu Kosan Co, is in plans to take off-stream a polystyrene (PS) plant for a maintenance turnaround, as per Apic-online.

A Polymerupdate source in Malaysia informed that the company has schedule to shut the plant in October 2017. The plant is likely to remain off-line for around 6 weeks.

Located at Pasir Gudang in Johor state of Malaysia, the plant has a production capacity of 120,000 mt/year.

As MRC informed before, Japan's Idemitsu Kosan said in late November 2016 its JV with Mitsui Chemicals would conduct work to expand the processing of propane at Idemitsu's naphtha cracker to take advantage of cheap liquefied petroleum gas (LPG) prices.

Idemitsu Kosan is a Japanese petroleum company. It owns and operates oil platforms, refineries and produces and sells petroleum, oils and petrochemical products. The company runs two petrochemical plants in Chiba and Tokuyama. The two naphtha crackers can produce up to 997,000 tonnes of ethylene per year. Petrochemicals Malaysia is a subsidiary of Japan-based Idemitsu Kosan Co.
MRC

PP production in Russia dropped by 2% in January-May 2017

MOSCOW (MRC) - Production of polypropylene (PP) in Russia decreased to about 591,700 tonne in first five months of this year, down 2% year on year, compared to the same period of 2016. The decrease in PP production accounted for only twwo producers, according to MRC ScanPlast.

Russia's PP production increased to 126,800 tonnes in May, from 110,600 tonnes in April. The low figure of April was a result of scheduled maintenance works at NPP Neftekhimia and Stavrolen. Total PP production in Russia reached 591,700 tonnes in Jan-May 2017 against 603,000 tonnes, an increase showed all producers, expect Nizhnekamskneftekhim and Neftekhimia.

Structure of PP production over the reported period looked as follows.

The largest producer of PP in Russia - SIBUR Tobolsk in May produced about 46,700 tonnes against 44,300 tonnes a month earlier. SIBUR Tobolsk's PP production reached 220,500 tonnes in January-May 2017, down 1% year on year.

May production at Poliom were about 18,600 tonnes, while a month earlier this figure was 17,600 tonnes. Total PP production at the plant over the reported period was about 88,600 tonnes, up 5% year on year.

May PP production at Ufaorgsintez increased to about 11,000 tonnes from 10,600 tonnes a month earlier. The producer's PP output at Ufaorgsintez increased to 52,200 tonnes in January-May 2017 compared with 51,800 tonnes year on year.
Stavrolen (LUKOIL) in May increased capacity utilisation, having produced 10,600 tonnes of propylene polymers against 7,700 tonnes a month earlier (in April production was stopped for 10-day turnaround). Overall PP production at the plant exceeded 48,800 tonnes in January-May, down 3% year on year.

Tomskneftekhim also increased production volumes in May, and the final production of propylene polymers was 12,400 tonnes against 11,700 tonnes in April. Total PP production at Tomskneftekhim over the reported period reached 58,900 tonnes, compared with 57,500 tonnes year on year.

May PP production at Nizhnekamskneftekhim was 18,100 tonnes from 18,900 tonnes, which actually equal to the level in April. The producer's PP production in January-May decreased by 1% from last year's level to 90,800 tonnes.

Neftekhimia (Kapotnya) in March-April shut its capacity for long-term turnaround, in May the enterprise reached a 100% capacity utilisation.
Producer's PP production in May grew to 9,300 tonnes. The producer's PP output in the first five months of the year reached 31,700 tonnes, down 40% year on year.


MRC

Mexico watchdog gives conditional approval to Dow, DuPont merger

MOSCOW (MRC) -- Mexico's antitrust watchdog said on Tuesday that it has given approval to DuPont (DD.N) and Dow Chemical Co to merge on the condition that they sell certain crop protection products and other assets, said Reuters.

The asset sales required by Mexico's Federal Economic Competition Commission (Cofece) is similar to what U.S. antitrust enforcers asked of the two companies and similar to what the firms had agreed to give up in a deal they struck with European regulators in March.

Cofece said Dow needs to sell its acid copolymers and ionomers businesses. The products are used to make food packaging and other goods. It asked DuPont to sell an insecticide business.

Dow operates six subsidiaries in Mexico, DuPont has 11 subsidiaries there.

Dow and DuPont announced the deal in December 2015 in what was billed as an all-stock merger valued at USD130 billion.
MRC