Asia Distillates-Gasoil refining margins dip, cash discount widens

MOSCOW (MRC) - Asian refining margins for 10 ppm gasoil slipped, while weaker buying interest in the physical market pushed cash differentials for the industrial fuel lower, Reuters.

Refining margins or cracks for gasoil with 10ppm sulfur content were at USD15.99 a barrel over Dubai crude during Asian trade, 15 cents lower from Monday's USD16.14 per barrel.

Cracks for the region's benchmark gasoil grade, however, have gained about 15 percent in the last one month, and are seasonally at their highest levels since 2015, Refinitiv Eikon data showed. Despite a few gasoil shipments towards the West from Asia last month, the arbitrage window is not quite open at the moment, trade sources said, as Singapore cracks are quite strong and the region's supplies are tightening with seasonal refinery turnarounds picking up.

The exchange of futures for swaps (EFS), which determines the gasoil price spread between Singapore and North West Europe, narrowed to around minus USD16 per tonne on Tuesday, according to Refinitiv Eikon data.

The arbitrage is usually profitable when the EFS trades at about minus USD18 a tonne or below, traders said. Cash discounts for 10ppm gasoil GO10-SIN-DIF were at 29 cents a barrel to Singapore quotes on Tuesday, compared with a 28-cents discount a day earlier.

Meanwhile, cash discounts for jet fuel JET-SIN-DIF remained unchanged at 29 cents a barrel to Singapore quotes as the physical market in the Singapore window remained quiet with no bids or deals on Tuesday. Jet fuel refining margins dropped to USD14.12 a barrel over Dubai crude on Tuesday, compared with USD14.54 a barrel on Monday.
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MOSCOW (MRC) -- Haldor Topsoe, a world leader in high-performance catalysts and proprietary technologies, and the connected plant leader Honeywell announced a technology alliance to expand the benefits of connected services to a broader range of the chemical and refining industries, as per Hydrocarbonprocessing.

As a product of this alliance, Topsoe has launched ClearView – a breakthrough service to maximize plant output, save energy, and improve reliability. Using Honeywell’s cloud-based software platform, the ClearView service gathers operating data from the plant, cleanses the data, applies Haldor Topsoe’s tools and experience, and delivers performance-enhancing insights straight to the plant’s process engineers and managers.

"As a global market leader in catalysts and technology, we are thrilled to offer our customers a service that puts our decades of experience at their fingertips every hour of every day. Using Honeywell’s proven software platform and tools, ClearView applies Topsoe’s unique insights and allows our experts to work more closely with plant engineers to meet critical performance targets and reduce the risk of unplanned shutdowns," says Bjerne S. Clausen, CEO, Haldor Topsoe.

Haldor Topsoe’s proprietary modelling and simulation tools have been constantly updated and refined to design increasingly energy-efficient and reliable plants and help customers optimize existing production and catalyst utilization. Now, the ClearView service gives Topsoe customers continuous access to these tools to increase the profitability of their plants. As part of the service, Topsoe engineers follow plant performance and proactively guide the customers’ plant engineers in optimizing performance and quickly addressing operational issues based on output from the ClearView service.

"In essence, ClearView constitutes a completely new way for plant personnel and Topsoe experts to join forces in pursuing optimal utilization of a plant or a unit,” says Michael Fjording, Director, Connected Services, Haldor Topsoe.

The ClearView Service is a great addition to the Honeywell Connected Plant partner ecosystem, because it meets a growing need in a broader area of the chemicals and refining processes,” said Zak Alzein, vice president and general manager of Honeywell’s Connected Performance Services business. “The technology alliance with Topsoe leverages the power of the connected plant and brings the deep domain expertise of Topsoe into a growing partner network.”

Honeywell Connected Plant solutions is already well-proven, as such solutions have been deployed or are in the process of being deployed in more than 60 customers’ process units.
MRC

MOSCOW (MRC) -- Celanese Corporation, a global specialty materials company, has increase March list and off-list selling prices for Vinyl Acetate Monomer (VAM) sold in Europe, Middle East, Africa and the Americas, as per the company's press release.

The price increases below were effective for orders shipped on or after 1 March, 2018, or as contracts otherwise allow, and are incremental to any previously announced increases.

Thus, VAM prices rose, as follows:

- by EUR100/mt - for Europe, Middle East & Africa;
- by USD0.05/lb - for the USA and Canada:
- by USD110/mt - for Mexico & South America.

As MRC reported earlier, Celanese last raised its VAM prices for the stated above regions on 1 October, 2018, as follows:

- by EUR50/mt - for Europe, Middle East & Africa;
- by USD0.03/lb - for the USA and Canada:
- by USD65/mt - for Mexico & South America.

Celanese Corporation is a global technology leader in the production of differentiated chemistry solutions and specialty materials used in most major industries and consumer applications. Based in Dallas, Celanese employs approximately 7,600 employees worldwide and had 2017 net sales of USD6.1 billion.
MRC

MOSCOW (MRC) -- TechnipFMC has successfully completed the remaining conditions required to enable work to commence on the Engineering, Procurement, and Construction (EPC) contract by Middle East Oil Refinery (MIDOR) for the modernization and expansion of their existing complex near Alexandria, Egypt, as per Hydrocarbonprocessing.

As previously stated, this major EPC contract covers the debottlenecking of existing units, the delivery of new units including a Crude and Vacuum Distillation Unit, a hydrogen production facility based on our steam reforming technology, as well as various process units, interconnecting, offsites and utilities. Starting in 2022, the modernized complex will produce Euro V products, with a 60% increase in the refinery’s original capacity to 160,000 barrels per day of crude oil.

The contract award will be included in the Company’s first quarter 2019 inbound orders in its Onshore/Offshore segment.

We remind that, as MRC informed before, in June 2016, Jacobs Engineering Group Inc. announced that it had received a contract to provide detailed engineering and procurement assistance services to TCI Sanmar Chemical for its PVC-2 polyvinyl chloride plant expansion project in Port Said, Egypt. When complete, the PVC-2 facility’s production capacity is expected to be 200 kilo-tonnes per annum (KTPA). Combined with its other global facilities, this takes TCI Sanmar’s total PVC production capacity to 400 KTPA, strengthening the company’s position as one of the largest PVC producers in the Middle East and North Africa.
MRC

MOSCOW (MRC) -- Versum Materials Inc. rejected a USD5.9 billion takeover offer from Merck KGaA, and said it’s committed to completing the previously announced merger with Entegris Inc., said Bloomberg.

"After careful review and consideration, conducted in consultation with its independent financial and legal advisors, the Versum board concluded that Merck KGaA’s proposal is not a superior proposal," the company said in a statement Friday.

Earlier this week German conglomerate Merck made a USD48-a-share offer in an attempt to break up the USD3.8 billion planned merger between the two U.S. makers of semiconductor components. Under the terms of the merger agreement with Entegris announced on Jan. 28, Versum shareholders would receive 1.120 shares of Entegris for each existing Versum share.

The combination with Entegris is expected to close in the second half, Versum said. German Merck isn’t related to U.S.-based health care company Merck & Co.

Merck believes that its USD48 a-share proposal is clearly superior and represents a 51.7 percent premium to the Versum share price before the Entegris deal was announced, the company said in a statement. "We believe our proposal represents a full and fair price for the company," the statement said.
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