Mitsui to buy Sunvieo TPS assets of Asahi Kasei

MOSCOW (MRC) -- Mitsui Chemicals said it plans to acquire Asahi Kasei's Sunvieo thermoplastic styrene elastomer (TPS) business on 1 Dec. 2017 for an undisclosed amount, as per Apic-online.

The transaction will allow Mitsui to respond to a wider range of needs across numerous areas, including automotive parts and consumer products, and to further differentiate its existing Milastomer thermoplastic vulcanizate elastomer and thermoplastic olefin elastomer lineup from the competition.

Mitsui plans to use the acquisition as an opportunity to further grow its Milastomer business and continue to take hold of globally rising demand as the company pur-sues additional business expansion, Mitsui noted.

As MRC reported earlier, in March 2016, Mitsui & Co., Ltd. and Hankuk Carbon Co., a company listed on the Korea Exchange, entered into a strategic alliance agreement to engage in collaborative business activities relating to the processing of composite materials.

Mitsui Chemicals is a leading manufacturer and supplier of value added specialty chemicals, plastics and materials for the automotive, healthcare, packaging, agricultural, building, and semiconductor and electronics markets. Mitsui Chemicals is a Japanese Chemicals company, a part of the Mitsui conglomerate. The company has a turnover of around 15 billion USD and has business interests in Japan, Europe, China, Southeast Asia and the USA. The company mainly deals in performance materials, petro and basic chemicals and functional polymeric materials.
MRC

MOSCOW (MRC) — Romanian prosecutors have decided to close a criminal case against Russia's Petrotel Lukoil refinery in Romania over allegations of money laundering, although the trial of a larger related case continues, as per Reuters.

A spokeswoman for the prosecutors did not say why the case had been closed. In 2015, prosecutors attached to the court of appeals of the central Romanian city of Ploiesti seized Lukoil assets worth USD2.4 B in an investigation over alleged money laundering and tax evasion. The trial started last year.

Lukoil said on Friday that Romanian prosecutors had decided to close a criminal case against Petrotel-Lukoil S.A and its director general Andrei Bogdanov on Nov. 3. The company did not provide further details.

The closed case relates to one of about five lesser or separate allegations, the spokeswoman for the prosecutors said.
MRC

MOSCOW (MRC) -- Russian pipeline monopoly Transneft will increase oil exports via its pipeline system to 242.4 MMt in 2018, reported Hydrocarbonprocessing with reference to Vice President Sergei Andronov's statement on Monday.

Transneft has previously forecast oil exports via its pipeline network to total 238 MMt this year.

As MRC wrote previously, Russian pipeline monopoly Transneft is buying a stake in the oil terminal at the Baltic Sea port of Ust-Luga from businessman Andrei Bokarev. Transneft-Baltica's request to buy a 25% plus one share stake in terminal was approved by the Federal Antimonopoly service in H2 October 2017. The terminal, launched in 2015, has a capacity of 30 MMt of oil products per year. Bokarev owns 74% and oil trader Gunvor holds the remainder. Transneft confirmed that it was buying the stake in the terminal but did not disclose the seller or price. Gunvor built the terminal and sold a 74 percent stake in the terminal to Bokarev in 2015. Analysts at the time estimated the value of Gunvor's deal with Bokarev at USD1.9 B–USD2.2 B at current exchange rates.
MRC

MOSCOW (MRC) — SNC-Lavalin announced it has been awarded a contract by Ecopetrol in Colombia for conceptual, basic and detailed engineering on high and medium-complexity projects through to 2020, said Hydrocarbonprocessing.

This contract builds on the company’s success over the past five years in Latin America’s oil and gas sector and solidifies SNC-Lavalin’s commitment to the region.

Ecopetrol operates across exploration and production, refining and petrochemicals, as well as transportation and logistics. The contract spans projects across the entire spectrum of Ecopetrol’s business and its affiliates.
MRC

MOSCOW (MRC) -- Russia’s largest oil producer Rosneft said on Monday it had signed a deal with CEFC China Energy Company Ltd on oil supplies, further strengthening its foothold in the world’s largest energy consumer, reported Reuters.

Rosneft said it would supply up to 60.8 MMt of oil in total in the next five years starting from Jan. 1, 2018. The price of the oil deliveries is defined according to a formula which is pegged to prices on the global market.

As MRC informed before, in late June 2017, Rosneft and Sinopec Group signed a Framework Agreement on joint pre-feasibility study of the project related to the construction and operation of a gas processing and petrochemical complex in East Siberia. The Agreement signed in furtherance of the Memorandum of Understanding on cooperation in petrochemical projects, provides to select a technology for natural gas processing from its components to polymers. The parties also decided to choose a consultant for the project management and identified competitive challenges and the time to fix them before entering the stage front-end engineering design (FEED). In the event of successful outcomes as stipulated by the Framework Agreement, it is supposed to create a joint venture between Rosneft and Sinopec in 2017. The project will meet the growing demand for polyethylene and polypropylene in Russia and in China.

Rosneft became Russia's largest publicly traded oil company in March 2013 after the USD55 billion takeover of TNK-BP, which was Russia’s third-largest oil producer at the time.
MRC