AkzoNobel acquires decorative paints maker in Spain

MOSCOW (MRC) -- Akzo Nobel has acquired Xylazel S.A., a 100% subsidiary of Pharma Mar S.A., as per the company's press release.

With this acquisition AkzoNobel strengthens its business and becomes a leader in the decorative paints market in Spain. It also means the company is now the leader in the country's woodcare segment and has strengthened its position in metal care. The transaction marks the 45-year anniversary of AkzoNobel on the Spanish market.

Xylazel has about 100 employees, with one production facility in Porrino. Revenue for 2017 totaled approximately EUR20 million.

Thierry Vanlancker,CEO of AkzoNobel, said: "As a part of our transformative strategy, we continue to focus on leading market positions delivering leading performance. This couples organic growth with strategic bolt-on acquisitions on top of operational excellence and continuous improvement. By acquiring Xylazel, we will be able to further grow our business in the region and strengthen our position as the leading paints and coatings company in Europe."

Ruud Joosten, COO of AkzoNobel, added: "We are proud to add the leading brands Xylazel and Oxirite to our portfolio. Xylazel has a 43-year-old heritage on the Spanish market and a leading position in DIY, professional and industrial sectors of wood protection. This will strengthen our position in Spain and will allow us to offer our customers a wider portfolio of innovative and sustainable products."

As MRC wrote before, in June 2018, AkzoNobel entered into an agreement to acquire 100% of the shares of Fabryo Corporation S.R.L. (Fabryo), becoming the leader in the Romanian decorative paints market.

Akzo Nobel N.V., trading as AkzoNobel, is a Dutch multinational, active in the fields of decorative paints, performance coatings and specialty chemicals. Headquartered in Amsterdam, the company has activities in more than 80 countries, and employs approximately 55,000 people.
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MOSCOW (MRC) -- Henkel says that it has laid the corner stone for the new global innovation centre of its Adhesive Technologies business at the company’s headquarters in Dusseldorf, Germany, said Evertiq.

The company is investing more than EUR 130 million in this venture. Once completed, the new facility will allow more than 350 Henkel experts to develop new technologies and applications for a variety of industries. The opening of the new centre is scheduled for the end of 2020.

"Innovations are an integral part of our corporate strategy. They drive our growth. That is why we are making this targeted investment in innovation and growth," says Henkel CEO Hans Van Bylen, in a press release. "This particular investment is also a strong commitment to our hometown, Dusseldorf, which is one of our largest research, development and production sites worldwide."

"The innovation center for Adhesive Technologies will support our ambition to offer innovative solutions and comprehensive service to our customers. We want to take our innovation capabilities for adhesives, sealants and functional coatings to the next level," explained Jan-Dirk Auris, Henkel Board member for the Adhesive Technologies business.

The seven-story innovation centre will feature numerous labs, research and testing facilities, office space and conference rooms spread out over an area of about 50’000 square metres. Following its planned completion at the end of 2020, more than 350 employees from the Research and Development, Product Development, Application Technology, Technical Service and Innovation areas will move into the centre. These employees all currently work in different buildings across the Dusseldorf site.

As MRC informed earlier, in June 2015, Henkel Russia opened a new dry building mixes plant in the Novosibirsk region. The production site reportedly places the company closer to customers in the Siberian and Far East regions of Russia.

Henkel operates in three business units, including laundry and home care, beauty care and adhesive technologies.
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MOSCOW (MRC) -- Royal Dutch Shell Plc shut the gasoline-producing unit at its 218,200 barrel per day (bpd) Norco, Louisiana, refinery for repairs on Wednesday, said sources familiar plant operations, as per Hydrocarbonprocessing.

Production on the 112,000 bpd Residual Catalytic Cracking Unit was stopped on Monday to repair a leak, but the unit remained on circulation, the sources said. The unit was completely shut to carry out the repairs.

As MRC informed before, in May 2018, China National Offshore Oil Corporation (CNOOC) and Shell Nanhai B.V. (Shell) announced the official start-up of the second ethylene cracker at their Nanhai petrochemicals complex in Huizhou, Guangdong Province, China.

Royal Dutch Shell plc is an Anglo-Dutch multinational oil and gas company headquartered in The Hague, Netherlands and with its registered office in London, United Kingdom. It is the biggest company in the world in terms of revenue and one of the six oil and gas "supermajors". Shell is vertically integrated and is active in every area of the oil and gas industry, including exploration and production, refining, distribution and marketing, petrochemicals, power generation and trading.
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MOSCOW (MRC) -- India will continue to depend on oil as a mainstay of its energy but its oil demand growth will likely slow as the government pushes for cleaner energy and renewables, Harish Mehta, President, Refining & Marketing at Reliance Industries said, reported Reuters.

India is pushing for intervention to support renewables, grid electrification, and the government is trying popularize natural gas and shared mobility, said Mehta said during the Asia Pacific Petroleum Conference (APPEC) in Singapore.

"This will lower down the growth of oil consumption (in India) over the next decades," he said.

However, oil consumption will still increase to 480 million tonnes by 2040 as the renewable push will not completely halt oil demand growth, he said, citing official statistics.

To meet that consumption, India has been boosting its overall refining capacity with first production from its upcoming West Coast refinery expected in 2022.

India has plans to add 190 million tonnes per year of refining capacity over the next 10 years to its existing 228 million tonnes per years, he said.

"Over a period of time, some additional refining capacity would also come and some of the exports which are happening through the private sector will probably get curtailed and would get consumed in the country itself," he said.

Mehta said he is optimistic about the possibilities in the Indian retail fuel sector because of a conducive regulatory environment in the country at the moment.

As MRC informed before, in earlyu 2018, Reliance Industries declared a 30 percent increase in the installed capacity of its export-focused oil refinery, a government report showed, increasing the size of the world’s largest refinery complex.

Reliance Industries is one of the world's largest producers of polymers. Thus, the company produces among others polypropylene, polyethylene and polyvinyl chloride.
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MOSCOW (MRC) - A rail terminal outside of Philadelphia has begun taking deliveries of Bakken crude after going dormant for nearly three years, according to shipping data and a source familiar with operations, as refiners snatch up discounted North American crude barrels, as per Hydrocarbonprocessing.

The 90,000 barrel-per-day-rail terminal in Eddystone, Pennsylvania, has been getting routine deliveries of Bakken crude for the past month, the first significant deliveries since the site went dark in January 2016. Monroe Energy, a subsidiary of Delta Air Lines Inc, is using the terminal to help supply its 185,000 bpd refinery in Trainer, Pennsylvania.

The return of crude deliveries at Eddystone highlights the growing pains confronting U.S. producers who are facing bottlenecks as booming production outpaces pipeline growth. It also shows how U.S. refiners are trying to seize on the bottlenecks, doing whatever they can to access the distressed crude.

The Eddystone rail terminal was one of several facilities built on the U.S. East Coast in the early part of this decade to take advantage of discounted crude out of North Dakota. But business at this terminal and others slumped as the discount vanished and cheap imports came into favor.

North Dakota oil production hit a record 1.3 million barrels per day in July, outpacing pipeline capacity, forcing producers to discount crude and making it attractive for coastal buyers.

The Dakota Access Pipeline, the key artery out of North Dakota, was nearly 100 percent full in August, according to energy industry intelligence service Genscape. Flows on the line, which runs from North Dakota to Illinois, are averaging just over 500,000 bpd, and further expansion is expected.

U.S. crude’s discount to global benchmark Brent rose to more than USD10 a barrel this month, the widest in three months and near the biggest discount in over three years.

That spread is key for East Coast refiners, since the Bakken grade is priced off U.S. crude while import grades are typically priced off Brent. But other factors such as full pipelines have also contributed to the pickup in crude by rail, traders said.

Rail volumes from North Dakota to the East Coast hit nearly 75,000 bpd in June, according to the latest federal data, up from near zero volumes in August and September of last year. At the height of the boom, more than 450,000 bpd ran from the Bakken to the East Coast.
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