MOSCOW (MRC) -- Shell has agreed to buy Total's majority stake in a large exploration block off Brunei in the South China Sea for USD300 million, according to S&P Global with reference to the French oil major's statement Wednesday.
Total holds a 86.95% interest in 5,850 sq km Block CA1, which is located 100 km off the coast of Brunei in water depths ranging from 1,000 to 2,500 meters. Total currently operates the block alongside partners Murphy Oil (8.05%) and Petronas (5%).
"This transaction fits with our strategy of actively managing our portfolio and will contribute to our program to dispose of USD5 billion of non-core assets over the period 2019-2020," Total's upstream head Arnaud Breuillac said in a statement.
Total said the transaction is subject to approval by the local authorities and is expected to close by December.
As MRC reported previously, in mid-October, Royal Dutch Shell Plc restarted the hydrocracker at its 225,300 barrel-per-day (bpd) Norco, Louisiana, refinery. The 40,000 bpd hydrocracker was shut on Sept. 9 for a planned month-long overhaul. A longer than expected restart of the unit stretched the outage to six weeks.
Ethylene and propylene are feedstocks for producing polyethylene (PE) and polyprolypele (PP).
According to MRC's ScanPlast report, Russia's estimated PE consumption totalled 1,436,390 tonnes in the first eight months of 2019, up by 9% year on year. Shipments of all PE grades increased. At the same time, the PP consumption in the Russian market was 909,260 tonnes in January-August 2019, up by 10% year on year. Shipments of PP block copolymer and homopolymer PP increased.
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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