SONGWON, Disheng Technology Co., Ltd Partner to produce UV absorbers

MOSCOW (MRC) -- SONGWON Industrial Co., Ltd. said it entered into a partnership with Disheng Technology Co., Ltd, (Jiangsu Province, China) for the production of some of its UVA light stabilizers, said Coatingsworld.

Disheng is currently in the process of building a new state-of-the-art factory dedicated to light stabilizers in Fujian Province, China.

Within the framework of the partnership, Disheng will supply SONGWON with a wide range of its UVAs (SONGSORB and SONGSORB CS) for plastics and coatings applications. The products will be sold globally under SONGWON trademark.

In partnership, the companies will: Ensure the availability of best-in-class products, processes and EHS practices;
Further strengthen SONGWON’s supply reliability for this product range thanks to reserved production capacities;
Closely cooperate on a technology level for the development of future light stabilizers.

"Entering into a partnership with a highly regarded and technically competent company such as Disheng that ensures long-term and reliable access to additional capacity for key products represents a significant step towards realizing our strategic plans going forward,” said Maurizio Butti, CEO of SONGWON Industrial Group. “It will not only support long-term growth but more importantly it will enable SONGWON to continue delivering the sustainable supply reliability our customers expect."

SONGWON will leverage its global reach and leading position in polymer and coatings stabilizers to market the products, while Disheng will focus on managing the manufacturing side. In this way we can make the best use of both companies’ complementary strengths” added Xingping Pan, president of Disheng Group.
MRC

MOSCOW (MRC) - Venezuela this month plans to import over 300,000 barrels per day (bpd) of refined products to ease domestic fuel shortages caused by hobbled refineries and need to prioritize exports, according to Hydrocarbonprocessing.

The country with the world’s largest crude reserves this year has not been able to make enough fuel to meet local demand and fulfill supply contracts with customers, including those under oil-for-loan agreements with Russia and China, the documents showed.

From January through November, state-run oil firm PDVSA bought 19,000 bpd of crude mostly to feed its Isla refinery in Curacao and 234,000 bpd of refined products, including naphtha for diluting its extra heavy oil output, gasoline, diesel for power generation and components to make motor fuel.

The 253,000 bpd of total imports so far this year represent an all-time record and a 40-percent increase compared with the 180,250 bpd bought last year, according to internal PDVSA data analyzed by Reuters.

The purchases, which have expanded despite PDVSA’s cash constraints, have been negotiated almost entirely through swaps with fuel providers and traders, which receive Venezuelan crude and residual fuel, according to the data, a PDVSA employee and traders involved in the deals.

“Since February, we have not paid a single imported cargo with cash. We are exchanging the imported fuel for (Venezuelan) asphalt, virgin naphtha, natural gasoline, fuel oil, residual crude, whatever we have,” said the PDVSA employee who could not be identified because the information is private.

Venezuela’s fuel demand has decreased to 325,000 bpd in recent months - half the peak volume registered a decade ago - according to the PDVSA documents, amid a severe economic recession. Still, PDVSA has been unable to supply gas stations, airports, power plants and industrial customers, leading to drivers waiting to fill their tanks and customers fighting over cooking gas.

From January through November, PDVSA delivered 270,000 bpd of domestic and imported fuel to the domestic market, 17 percent below the demand level, the documents showed.
MRC

MOSCOW (MRC) -- Brazilian antitrust watchdog Cade will begin on an investigation that may result in mandatory sales of refineries by state-controlled oil company Petroleo Brasileiro SA, reported Reuters with reference to newspaper Valor Economico.

According to the paper, Cade is analyzing the influence of Petrobras on fuel prices. The company controls almost 100 percent of refining in the country. Cade and Petrobras did not immediately comment on the matter.

Petrobras has proposed earlier this year to sell a 60 percent stake in four refineries. But a truckers strike that pressured the company’s pricing policies spooked buyers, and a decision by Supreme Court Justice Ricardo Lewandowski forced the company to halt the sale process.

As MRC wrote previously, in October 2017, Petrobras’s minority stakes in Braskem and Deten Quimica was excluded from Petrobras’s divestment program, according to a government decree published in Brazil’s Official Gazette. The decree prevented Petrobras from immediately selling its minority stake in Braskem, which had been announced last year. A new decree will be required to release the stock sale.

Headquartered in Rio de Janeiro, Petrobras is an integrated energy firm. Petrobras' activities include exploration, exploitation and production of oil from reservoir wells, shale and other rocks as well as refining, processing, trade and transport of oil and oil products, natural gas and other fluid hydrocarbons, in addition to other energy-related activities.
MRC

MOSCOW (MRC) -- Shandong Haili Chemical Industry has restarted its acrylonitrile-butadiene-styrene (ABS) plant, according to Apic-online.

A Polymerupdate source in China informed that the company has resumed operations at the unit on November 30, 2018 following an unplanned outage. The plant was shut on November 5, 2018 owing to technical issues.

Located at Shandong, China, the plant has a production capacity of 200,000 mt/year.

We remind that, as MRC wrote before, Russian petrochemicals group Nizhnekamskneftekhim, one of Russia’s largest petrochemical producers, formally commissioned its EUR100m 60,000 tpa ABS polymer plant in Nizhnekamsk in April 2013.
MRC

MOSCOW (MRC) -- Poland’s biggest oil refiner PKN Orlen will receive a shipment of 130,000 tonnes of crude from Angola in February 2019 as part of a wider plan to reduce reliance on Russian supplies, said Hydrocarbonprocessing.

In October, PKN Orlen receive its first ever shipment of Nigerian crude oil.

As MRC informed earlier, PKN Orlen S.A. informs that on 30 November 2018 it submitted to the European Commission a draft notification for concentration ("Notification"), together with the draft outline of remedies areas, regarding the planned taking capital control over Grupa Lotos S.A. headquartered in Gdansk ("Grupa Lotos") by PKN Orlen S.A. ("Transaction"). Notification, submitted today by the Company, initiates the process of the arrangement of its final version with the European Commission. After submitting the final notification by the Company, the European Commission will formally start the concentration investigation.
MRC