JG Summit Holdings to invest additional USD700 mln for petrochemical expansion

MOSCOW (MRC) -- JG Summit Holdings, Inc., the flagship of the Gokongwei family, is investing an additional USD700 mln for the expansion of its petrochemicals business through subsidiary JG Petrochemical Corporation, as per Plastemart.

In an interview after the firm’s annual stockholders’ meeting, JG Summit President Lance Gokongwei said this will boost their total investment in the petrochemicals business to USD2.2 bln.

Gokongwei said the expansion consists of five projects - expansion of the naphtha cracker by 50%, expansion of polypropylene plant by 50%, a new polyethylene plant, an aromatics plant and the fifth is a butadiene plant.

The company plans to award all the major packages (engineering, procurement, and construction contracts) by the end of the year, and plans to be operational by 2021. The funding for the expansion will be from the free cash flow of the existing petrochemicals business plus some borrowings.

As MRC informed before, in mid-June 2016, JG Summit Holdings Inc. unveiled plans to invest USD500-600 mln to expand its petrochemical business in the next three years, aiming to serve domestic as well as overseas markets.
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MOSCOW (MRC) -- Dow Chemical Co and DuPont reaffirmed their expectation to close their merger in August, said Reuters.

Boards of both companies have jointly started a portfolio review and have engaged McKinsey & Company to assist in the assessment.

Alexander Cutler, lead director of DuPont, said, "If results of our review demonstrate there is net greater long-term value creation to be realized through a change in portfolio, it will be pursued."

Canada's Competition Bureau said on Tuesday it would allow a planned merger between DuPont and Dow after both firms agreed to dispose of some assets.


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MOSCOW (MRC) -- The US Supreme Court on Monday handed a victory to Chevron Corp by preventing Ecuadorean villagers and their American lawyer from trying to collect on an USD8.65 billion pollution judgment issued against the oil company by a court in Ecuador, said Reuters.

The justices turned away an appeal by New York-based lawyer Steven Donziger, who has spent more than to two decades trying to hold Chevron responsible for pollution in the Ecuadorean rain forest, of lower court rulings blocking enforcement in the United States of the 2011 judgment.

While not disputing that pollution occurred, San Ramon, California-based Chevron has said it is not liable and that Donziger and his associates orchestrated the writing of a key environmental report and bribed the presiding judge in Ecuador.

US District Judge Lewis Kaplan in Manhattan barred enforcement of the judgment in 2014, citing the corruption used to obtain it. The New York-based 2nd US Circuit Court of Appeals last year upheld Kaplan's decision, citing "a parade of corrupt actions" by Donziger and his associates, including coercion and fraud, culminating in the bribe offer.

The 2nd Circuit found that Chevron's $8.646 B judgment debt was "clearly traceable" to corrupt conduct by the legal team representing the villagers from the area affected by the pollution.

The lengthy legal battle with Chevron has been waged in several countries and was documented in Crude, a 2009 documentary film. The plaintiffs have said they plan to continue efforts to enforce the judgment in other countries, regardless of the outcome in the United States.

The saga was drawn extensive media attention over the years, with a succession of reporters given tours by both sides of the affected sites on the edge of the Amazonian jungle near the town of Lago Agrio. The plaintiffs also touted the backing of several celebrities including actors Mia Farrow and Danny Glover.

Donziger and representatives of residents of the Lago Agrio region have sought to force Chevron to pay for water and soil contamination caused from 1964 to 1992 by Texaco, which Chevron acquired in 2001. Chevron has said a 1998 agreement between Texaco and Ecuador absolved it of further liability.

Donziger's crusade began to unravel when Chevron noticed a deleted scene in the "Crude" documentary, released in 2009, showing Donziger working with supposedly neutral experts in preparing a report for the Ecuadorean court.

Chevron was then able to get access to out-takes and other material related to the documentary via court order. Chevron cited this evidence when it filed its lawsuit in 2011 seeking to block enforcement of the judgment, saying Donziger's actions violated US anti-racketeering law.

Donziger has also tried to enforce the judgment in Canada, Brazil and other countries where Chevron operates.
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MOSCOW (MRC) -- The German specialty chemicals company Evonik Industries AG and the SinopecC Beijing Research Institute of the Chemical Industry (BRICI) have signed a collaboration agreement to build a process development laboratory for Organic Solvent Nanofiltration (OSN) membrane technology, as per Evonik's press release.

Based on its solid technical expertise and comprehensive OSN product portfolio, Evonik will act jointly with BRICI to develop new processes for Sinopec. "Starting up the OSN lab is a consistent step in our growth plan for the attractive membrane business," notes Dr. Dominic Stoerkle, Vice President & General Manager of the High Performance Polymers Business Line Asia Pacific at Evonik. "Based on the close partnership with BRICI and our active participation in the open platform, we anticipate further growth to result from the new joint OSN laboratory."

Professor Li Hongbo, president of the Yanshan Branch of Sinopec BRICI, particularly emphasized his organization’s willingness to enter into a more extensive cooperation with Evonik: "The joint OSN laboratory is a novel approach to fostering collaboration. It is well aligned with our regional innovation strategy and future development vision. Evonik will contribute advanced technology, which SINOPEC will make accessible to various business stages. With Evonik’s support, we will also build up a pilot plant unit in one of Sinopec’s production sites as an OSN reference plant."

Founded in1958, Sinopec Beijing Research Institute of the Chemical Industry (BRICI) is a pioneering institution in China dedicated to comprehensive research for the petrochemical industry. When Evonik initiated the first contact with BRICI in 2015, both parties showed strong interest in potential OSN applications for the petrochemical industry. In the following year, a series of laboratory-scale tests were successfully conducted for a lube oil dewaxing application. To enter into a partnership with the aim of developing more processes and setting up a long-term collaboration, both sides initiated several management-level meetings to discuss a future collaboration strategy. The joint OSN laboratory was officially established in early 2017, when Evonik’s first (lab-scale) equipment arrived at SINOPEC BRICI.

In the future, the laboratory will focus on the petrochemical industry to open up substantial markets in both China and the entire Asian region for OSN applications.

As MRC wrote previously, in June 2016 Evonik Industries started operating a thin-film composites plant to coat membranes for use in organic solvent nanofiltration and gas separation at its Marl site in Germany.

Besides, since late June 2016, the company has been conducting research into biodegradable high-strength composites, which could potentially replace metal in implants used for the internal fixation of fractured bones.

Evonik, the creative industrial group from Germany, is one of the world leaders in specialty chemicals. Its activities focus on the key megatrends health, nutrition, resource efficiency and globalization. Evonik benefits specifically from its innovative prowess and integrated technology platforms. Evonik is active in over 100 countries around the world.
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MOSCOW (MRC) — South Korea's GS Engineering & Construction said on Friday it won an order worth USD865 MM to restore a fire-hit refinery unit owned by UAE's Abu Dhabi National Oil Corp (ADNOC), said Hydrocarbonprocessing.

A fire broke out at the ADNOC's 800,000 bpd Ruwais refinery in January this year, cutting its capacity by half.

GS E&C, which said it won the order as it had constructed the refinery, said it aims to complete the work by early 2019.

ADNOC restarted crude distillation and associated units after the fire, but gasoline and propylene production have been partially reduced.

The Abu Dhabi National Oil Company or ADNOC is the state-owned oil company of the United Arab Emirates (UAE). According to the Oil & Gas Journal, as of January 2015, the UAE holds the seventh-largest proven reserves of oil in the world at 97.8 billion barrels. Most of these reserves are located in Abu Dhabi. It is the world's 11th largest oil company by production, standing at 3.1 million barrels per day.It is the UAE's biggest company.
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