Trinseo raised February PC prices in Europe

MOSCOW (MRC) -- Trinseo, a global materials company and manufacturer of plastics, latex binders and synthetic rubber, and its affiliate companies in Europe have announced a price increase for all polycarbonate (PC) grades in Europe, as per the company's press release.

Effective February 1, 2020, or as existing contract terms allow, the contract and spot prices for the products listed below increased as follows:

- CALIBRE PC resins - by EUR150 per metric ton.

As MRC informed earlier, Trinseo last raised its prices for all PC grades in Europe on 1 January 2020 also by EUR150 per metric ton.

According to MRC's ScanPlast report, Russia's estimated PC consumption (excluding imports and exports to/from Belarus) totalled 78,500 tonnes in 2019, up by 15% year on year (68,100 tonnes a year earlier).

Trinseo is a global materials company and manufacturer of plastics, latex and rubber. Trinseo's technology is used by customers in industries such as home appliances, automotive, building & construction, carpet, consumer electronics, consumer goods, electrical & lighting, medical, packaging, paper & paperboard, rubber goods and tires. Formerly known as Styron, Trinseo completed its renaming process in 1Q 2015. Trinseo had approximately USD4.6 billion in net sales in 2018, with 16 manufacturing sites around the world, and approximately 2,500 employees.
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MOSCOW (MRC) -- Brazilian state-run oil firm Petrobras expects to increase its equity value by roughly 45% by 2021, in large part by cutting costs and divesting non-core assets, it said in a presentation released, reported Reuters.

Capital expenditure from 2020 to 2024 will be concentrated in Brazil’s offshore "pre-salt" formation, with a special emphasis on its Buzios field, Petroleo Brasileiro SA, as the firm is formally known, said.

As MRC wrote earlier, Petrobras has recently announced the binding phase for the sale of three refineries in Brazil, according to a securities filing on Friday. The refineries are located in the states of Amazonas, Ceara and Parana. The largest of the three, REMAN, in Amazonas, has a 46,000 barrel a day processing capacity, according to the filing.

We also remind that the chief executive of Brazilian state-run oil firm Petroleo Brasileiro said in December 2019 he wants to sell the company's stake in petrochemical company Braskem within 12 months.

Besides, 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.

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

According to MRC's ScanPlast report, Russia's estimated PE consumption totalled 1,904,410 tonnes in the first eleven months of 2019, up by 6% year on year. Shipments of all PE grades increased. PE shipments increased from both domestic producers and foreign suppliers. The PP consumption in the Russian market was 1,161,830 tonnes in January-November 2019, up by 7% year on year. Deliveries of all grades of propylene polymers increased, with the homopolymer PP segment accounting for the largest increase.

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.
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MOSCOW (MRC) -- Olin (Clayton, Missouri) reports a fourth-quarter net loss of USD77 million, swinging from a profit of USD53 million in the year-ago period on weak demand and falling prices, according to Chemweek.

Sales totaled USD1.387 billion, down 15% year over year (YOY) from USD1.635 billion. Earnings per share came to a 49 cent loss, missing the average analyst estimate of an 11 cent loss as compiled by Refinitiv (New York).

Olin’s chairman, president, and CEO John E. Fischer says 2019 as a whole was difficult for the company. The chlor-alkali products and vinyls business reported weaker demand from urethane, agricultural, refrigerant, alumina, and pulp and paper customers, while the epoxy business saw weaker demand from automotive, electrical laminate, and industrial coatings customers. Olin’s caustic soda pricing during 2019 declined about 24% from 2018, while ethylene dichloride pricing declined about 30% and hydrochloric acid pricing about 40%. Epoxy resin prices dropped roughly 20% globally.

"Olin continues to face a challenging pricing environment as we enter 2020," says Fischer. "As an example, Olin’s caustic soda and ethylene dichloride pricing in January 2020 is expected to be approximately 15% lower than the average 2019 price. We expect the cost containment and productivity initiatives from 2019, coupled with ongoing efforts in 2020, to provide a partial offset to this challenging product pricing environment."

Sales in the chlor-alkali products and vinyls segment totaled USD762 million, down 22% YOY from USD981 million. Earnings came to USD33 million, down 77% from USD146 million. Olin cites lower caustic soda and ethylene dichloride pricing for most of the decline.

Sales in the epoxy segment totaled USD470 million, down 8% YOY from USD509 million. Segment earnings came to USD15 million, down 21% from USD19 million. Lower product prices were only partially offset by higher resin volumes and lower feedstock benzene and propylene costs.

Sales in the Winchester ammunition segment totaled USD155 million, up 6% YOY from USD146 million, and earnings came to USD7 million, up 63% from USD4.3 million.

As MRC informed before, Olin Corporation announced in December 2019 that it plans to permanently shut down a chlor alkali plant with a capacity of 230,000 tons and its Vinylidene Chloride (VDC) production facility, both in Freeport, Texas. These closures are expected to be completed before the end of 2020.

According to MRC's ScanPlast report, Russia's consumption of caustic soda increased to 1,071,500 tonnes in 2019, up by 10% year on year (975,600 tonnes). Imports of caustic soda into Russia were 32,300 tonnes in 2019, up by 61% year on year (20,000 tonnes). Exports of caustic soda from Russia decreased to 245,400 tonnes in 2019, down by 7% year on year (263,600 tonnes). Production of caustic soda in the country totalled 1,289,400 tonnes in 2019, up by 1% year on year (1,278,900 tonnes).

Olin Corporation is a leading vertically-integrated global manufacturer and distributor of chemical products and a leading US manufacturer of ammunition. The chemical products produced include chlorine and caustic soda, vinyls, epoxies, chlorinated organics, bleach and hydrochloric acid. Winchester's principal manufacturing facilities produce and distribute sporting ammunition, law enforcement ammunition, reloading components, small caliber military ammunition and components, and industrial cartridges.
MRC

MOSCOW (MRC) -- The European Investment Bank (EIB) has granted Cepsa EUR60m to develop a petrochemical sustainability reserach and development (R&D) initiative, said the company.

This investment will be used to install a technology system created by Cepsa and to create a specialised technology company called Universal Oil Products to produce linear alkylbenzene (LAB).

The EIB-financed investment will be used to install the Detal system, a state-of-the-art technology created by Cepsa and specialised technology company UOP (Universal Oil Products) to produce linear alkylbenzene (LAB), the most commonly used raw material for the production of biodegradable detergents internationally. This technology improves the efficiency of the manufacturing process and cuts CO2 emissions and water and electricity use. It also optimises the production process as it both reduces waste and enables much of it to be reused. Lastly, this technology delivers major safety improvements.

The EIB will monitor the implementation of this project, which Cepsa plans to complete in mid-2020, as part of its goal to move towards a more efficient and sustainable productive model.

The agreement was made possible by the Investment Plan for Europe, which enables the EIB to support investments fostering innovation, economic growth and employment. During the implementation phase, Cepsa estimates that this project will create around 250 (mostly local) jobs, peaking at 400 jobs, and will help to safeguard Cepsa's 3 600 direct and 2 600 indirect positions in Andalusia.

LAB is the most common raw material used to produce biodegradable detergents and cuts emissions as less water and electricity is used, while in the production stage waste is reduced and much of it can be reused.

Cepsa anticipates that the project will be completed by mid-2020.

The grant – signed in Madrid by EIB vice president Emma Navarro and Cepsa's CEO Philippe Boisseau ­– was provided as part of the Investment Plan for Europe, which enables the EIB to support investments fostering innovation, economic growth, and employment.

Phenol is the main raw material component for the production of bisphenol A (BPA), which, in turn, is used to produce polycarbonate (PC).

As MRC informed earlier, Cepsa Quimica (Shanghai), a joint venture between Spanish petrochemical company CEPSA and Japanese Sumitomo Corp, resumed production at a phenol and acetone plant in Shanghai (Shanghai, China) on December 16. This enterprise with a capacity of 250 thousand tons of phenol and 150 thousand tons of acetone per year was closed on December 10 due to repair work on the gas pipeline in Shanghai Caojing Chemical Industry Park, where this plant is located.

According to MRC's ScanPlast report, Russia's estimated consumption of PC granules (excluding imports and exports to\\from Belarus) fell in January-November 2019 by 14% year on year to 70,700 tonnes (62,000 tonnes a year earlier).
MRC

MOSCOW (MRC) -- Freight rates for supertankers on the Mideast Gulf and U.S. Gulf routes to Asia have fallen to their lowest since mid-September as the coronavirus outbreak hit Chinese oil demand, ship brokers told Reuters.

China’s Sinopec Corp, Asia’s largest refiner, and so-called "teapot" independent refineries have reined in operations in the face of plunging consumption.

"The market has gone back to what it was before the COSCO sanctions came in," one ship broker said, referring to U.S. sanctions on subsidiaries of the state-owned Chinese shipping company.

"All the other variables have gone away, such as IMO 2020 congestion at ports, movement of low-sulphur fuel and industrial action in Europe."

Freight rates shot up in late September on the back of the COSCO sanctions and again in December because of logistics snags related to the switch to cleaner shipping fuels with the introduction of the new IMO 2020 regulations.

The United States partially lifted sanctions on COSCO last Friday.

Ship broker Braemar on Monday said that the rate for a very large crude carrier (VLCC) from the U.S. Gulf to Asia had fallen to USD8 million, the lowest since Sept. 19. Another broker said a similar voyage was quoted at USD7.5 million.

Riverlake, another ship broker, said the world scale rate for the Middle East route was at its lowest since Sept. 16.

Sinopec is cutting throughput this month by about 12%, or 600,000 barrels per day, in its steepest cut in more than a decade.

The company’s Unipec trading arm has stopped buying West African crude and is re-selling at least five cargoes of Angolan crude.

Separately, major independent refineries in east China’s Shandong province, which collectively make up a fifth of China’s oil imports, have cut operations by 30-50% to less than half of their capacity, a level not seen since at least 2015.

As MRC informed before, Sinopec Qilu Petrochemical, the subsidiary of one of the world's largest energy and chemical companies, Sinopec, plans to shut the cracker unit in Tianjin in northeast China for scheduled repairs on 15 June, 2020. This cracking unit with a capacity of 900,000 tonnes of ethylene per year and 480,000 tonnes of propylene tons per year will be closed for scheduled repairs until 24 June, 2020.

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

According to MRC's ScanPlast report, Russia's estimated PE consumption totalled 2,093,260 tonnes in 2019, up by 6% year on year. Shipments of all PE grades increased. PE shipments rose from both domestic producers and foreign suppliers. The estimated PP consumption in the Russian market was 1,260,400 tonnes in January-December 2019, up by 4% year on year. Supply of almost all grades of propylene polymers increased, except for statistical copolymers of propylene (PP random copolymers).

Sinopec corp. is one of the world's largest integrated energy and chemical companies. Business Sinopec Corp. includes oil and gas exploration, production and transportation of oil and gas, oil refining, petrochemical production, production of mineral fertilizers and other chemical products. In terms of refining capacity, Sinopec Corp. ranks second in the world, in terms of ethylene capacity - fourth.
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