Braskem appoints Roberto Simoes as new CEO

MOSCOW (MRC) -- Brazilian polyolefins producer Braskem named the current chairman of the board, Roberto Simoes, as the company's new CEO, replacing Fernando Musa, reported Chemweek.

Musa will remain CEO through 31 December to help Simoes transition to the new role, Braskem said. Simoes's appointment will become effective on 1 January.

Simoes had earlier been CEO of Ocyan from 2014 to 2019. Before that, he was CEO of Odebrecht Defesa e Tecnologia from 2010-2012. He had been executive vice president of Braskem from 2004-2008.

As CEO of Braskem, Simoes will maintain the competitiveness of all of the company's operations, the company said. He will also increase the company's feedstock flexibility and geographic diversity, steps that are already being pursued by the company.

Musa had headed Braskem's US operations before becoming the company's CEO back in 2016.

As MRC informed before, Braskem is no longer pursuing a petrochemical project, which would have included an ethane cracker, in West Virginia. And the company is seeking to sell the land that would have housed the cracker. The project, announced in 2013, had been on Braskem's back burner for several years.

According to MRC's ScanPlast report, Russia's estimated PE consumption totalled 1,589,580 tonnes in the first nine months of 2019, up by 7% year on year. Shipments of all PE grades increased. The estimated PP consumption in the Russian market was 976,790 tonnes in January-September 2019, up by 4% year on year. Shipments of PP block copolymer and homopolymer PP increased.

Braskem S.A. produces petrochemicals and generates electricity. The Company produces ethylene, propylene, benzene, toluene, xylenes, butadiene, butene, isoprene, dicyclopentediene, MTBE, caprolactam, ammonium sulfate, cyclohexene, polyethylene theraphtalat, polyethylene, and polyvinyl chloride (PVC).
MRC

MOSCOW (MRC) -- Kazakh Neftekhim Ltd, Kazakhstan's sole polypropylene (PP) producer, shut its PP production on 18 November for unscheduled maintenance, according to the ICIS-MRC Price Report.

According to the enterprise’s customers, the shutdown of capacities was unplanned and was caused by the cessation of supplies of raw materials from the local refinery. The dates of resumption of PP production have not been announced yet.

It was earlier reported that the Kazakh producer had fully resumed its PP production by 25 October after the outage, caused by termination of feedstock shipments from the Pavlodar refinery. The local refinery shut some of its production capacities for an emergency turnaround from 30 September to 19 October.

Neftekhim Ltd resumed its PP production after the Pavlodar refinery finished the turnaround.

Neftekhim Ltd was commissioned in 2009. The company produces methyl tertiary butyl ether (MTBE) and polypropylene (PP). The plant's PP production with the capacity of 45,000 tonnes/year was launched in 2011; the plant did not have PP granulation unit then, polymer was produced in the form of powder, which limited its field of application.
MRC

Supply to Russia amounted to 44% (5,300 tonnes) of total exports in January-September against a share of 66% (5,700 tonnes) for the same period last year.

The share of exports to Russia from Belarus in September decreased to 49% (560 tonnes), in August it amounted to 59% (620 tonnes).

MRC

MOSCOW (MRC) -- CPC Corporation has taken one of its naphtha crackers off-stream on 8 November 2019 for major maintenance work, reported CommoPlast with reference to market sources.

The cracker number 4 is expected to remain offline for about 65 days and would resume operation by mid of January 2020.

The No. 4 unit has an annual capacity of 380,000 tons/year of ethylene and 193,000 tons/year of propylene. The shutdown would result in a production loss of 67,671 tons of ethylene and 34,370 tons of propylene.

Sources added that for December 2019 contract, CPC would fulfill only 85% of the volume due to the shutdown.

As MRC informed earllier, CPC Corporation took its No. 4 cracker off-line in mid-November 2017 owing to technical issues and resumed its operations in late January, 2018. Located in Linyuan, Taiwan, the cracker has an ethylene capacity of 380,000 mt/year and propylene capacity of 193,000 mt/year.

Ethylene and propylene are feedstocks for producing polyethylene (PE) and polyprolypele (PP).

According to MRC's ScanPlast report, Russia's estimated PE consumption totalled 1,589,580 tonnes in the first nine months of 2019, up by 7% year on year. Shipments of all PE grades increased. The estimated PP consumption in the Russian market was 976,790 tonnes in January-September 2019, up by 4% year on year. Shipments of PP block copolymer and homopolymer PP increased.

CPC Corporation, Taiwan, is engaged in the exploration, production, refining, procurement, transportation, storage, and marketing of oil and gas. The company provides fuel oil, including automotive unleaded gasoline and diesel fuel, low-sulfur fuel oil, marine distillate fuels, marine residual fuels, and aviation fuel; petrochemicals, such as ethylene, propylene, butadiene, benzene, para-xylene, and ortho-xylene; liquefied petroleum gas products comprising liquefied petroleum gas, propane, butane, and a propane/butane mixture; lubricants, motor oil, industrial oil, grease, and marilube oil; SNC products, including petroleum ether, naphtha, toluene, xylene, crude octene, methyl alcohol, normal paraffin, viscosity-graded asphalt cement, and sulfur; and natural gas.
MRC

MOSCOW (MRC) -- US crude oil output from seven major shale formations is expected to rise about 49,000 barrels per day in December to a record 9.13 million bpd, reported Reuters with reference to the US Energy Information Administration said in a monthly forecast.

Output at the largest formation, the Permian Basin of Texas and New Mexico, is expected to rise 57,000 bpd to 4.73 million bpd, the smallest increase since July this year but offsetting projected declines elsewhere.

Output in North Dakota and Montana's Bakken region is expected to edge higher by 9,000 bpd to a record 1.51 million bpd, the data showed.

Meanwhile, production declines are forecast in the Eagle Ford and Anadarko basins.

Production increases in the Permian and Bakken have been at the forefront of a shale boom that has helped make the United States the biggest oil producer in the world, ahead of Saudi Arabia and Russia.

Still, the rate of growth in the Permian has slowed as independent oil producers cut spending on new drilling and completions and focus more on earnings growth.

Investor dissatisfaction is expected to spur companies to rein in spending for a second year, with capital expenditures among companies that have released budgets set to fall more than 10% in 2020.

Still, majors are ramping up spending, offseting some of the impact this year.

Separately, US natural gas output in the big shale basins was projected to increase to a record 85.2 billion cubic feet per day (bcfd) in December.

That would only be up about 0.3 bcfd over the November forecast, its smallest monthly increase since January when production in the big shale basins declined.

Growth was slowing as the number of rigs in each region has declined since the start of the year.

Output in the Appalachia region, the biggest US shale gas formation, was set to rise less than 0.1 bcfd to a record 33.7 bcfd.

EIA said producers drilled 1,148 wells, the least since December 2017, and completed 1,373 in the biggest shale basins in October, leaving total drilled but uncompleted (DUC) wells down 225 to 7,642, the lowest since October 2018.

That was the biggest monthly decline in DUCs on record, according to EIA data going back to December 2013.
MRC