Venezuelan opposition reshuffles boards in a move to gain greater influence over Houston-based oil refiner Citgo

Venezuelan opposition reshuffles boards in a move to gain greater influence over Houston-based oil refiner Citgo

MOSCOW (MRC) -- Venezuela's political opposition has replaced members of the boards overseeing Citgo Petroleum Corp as factions in the movement led by Juan Guaido try to gain greater influence over Houston-based oil refiner, reported Reuters.

Citgo split from Venezuelan state-run oil company PDVSA in 2019 after the US imposed sanctions intended to oust Venezuela's President Nicolas Maduro. Then congress chief Juan Guaido appointed new boards and won US court recognition of their authority over the refining subsidiary.

Tuesday's shakeup introduced five new appointees tied to different opposition parties, some of them the sons of former PDVSA executives.

Chief Executive Carlos Jorda was replaced at the boards of Citgo Petroleum and parent company Citgo Holding. Citgo operating chief Edgar Rincon also stepped down from the board of Citgo Holding, according to a statement by the Guaido-led assembly.

Jorda and Rincon remain in their executive roles, a Citgo spokeswoman said.

The National Assembly statement did not provide a reason for the moves, which come after several previous management changes at the company. Citgo has lost hundreds of million dollars over six of the last eight quarters amid pandemic-related demand declines and storm shutdowns.

Factions within the National Assembly have been fighting for influence at Citgo since last year. Some lawmakers have sought to require Citgo pay dividends to holding companies Citgo Holding and PDV Holding, a move Jorda long opposed, according to people familiar with the matter.

Venezuelan businessman Luis Giusti Lugo, the son of a former PDVSA president, will replace CEO Jorda on the Citgo Petroleum board, while Ernesto Hernandez Bolivar will replace Pablo Perez on the same board, the statement said.

Samuel Wilhelm Belloso, the son of a former PDVSA executive, and Elio Tortolero Arevalo are joining the Citgo Holding board, replacing Jorda and COO Rincon. Hernandez Bolivar will fill the seat vacated on that board by Luisa Palacios in October.

Wilhelm Belloso and Andres Arvelo Guerrero also joined the PDV Holding ad-hoc board that oversees Citgo.

As MRC wrote before, in September 2020, Citgo Petroleum Corp said it did not plan to idle its 418,000 barrel-per-day (bpd) Lake Charles, Louisiana, refinery damaged by Hurricane Laura. Rumors have circulated since Laura’s passage over the Lake Charles area on Aug. 27 that Citgo was considering shutting the refinery for an indefinite period because of the extent of the damage and continuing low demand for motor fuels in the COVID-19 pandemic.

Ethylene and propylene are the main feedstocks for the production of polyethylene (PE) and polypropylene (PP), respectively.

According to MRC's ScanPlast report, Russia's estimated PE consumption totalled 744,130 tonnes in the first four month of 2021, up by 4% year on year. Shipments of all PE grades increased. At the same time, PP deliveries to the Russian market were 523,900 tonnes in January-April 2021, up by 55% year on year. Supply of homopolymer PP and PP block copolymers increased, whereas shipments of PP random copolymers decreased.
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Epsilyte Holdings acquires EPS producer Polysource

Epsilyte Holdings acquires EPS producer Polysource

MOSCOW (MRC) -- Epsilyte Holdings LLC ((The Woodlands, Texas), a leading provider of expandable polystyrene (EPS), services, and solutions has acquired Polysource Inc., a leading producer of compounded EPS and molded products used in building insulation, personal safety equipment, and filtration media, according to BusinessWire.

With the acquisition of Polysource, Epsilyte will operate two distinct business units: “EPS,” largely made up of the heritage Epsilyte business, and the newly formed “Compounded EPS” unit, which is mostly comprised of the heritage Polysource business based in Piqua, OH with approximately 90 associates. Polysource currently sells compounded EPS and molded products to customers in over 15 countries.

“We are thrilled to complete this acquisition and we welcome the Polysource associates to the Epsilyte team,” said Brad Crocker, President and Chief Executive Officer, of Epsilyte. “EPS is already a key enabler of carbon neutrality due to its almost unmatched insulative properties. This acquisition further strengthens our ability to enhance performance of our products through Polysource’s unique and efficient extrusion technology enabling us to better serve customers with more sustainable products and true value creation.”

Details of the transaction were not announced.

EPS is a rigid form of polystyrene (PS) used in insulation foams for the construction industry as well as for packaging.

According to ICIS-MRC Price report, April EPS imports into Russia were 1,010 tonnes versus 1,330 tonnes a month earlier and 1,020 tonnes in April 2020. EPS imports dropped by 5% year on year in January-April 2021: from 5,300 tonnes to 5,000 tonnes.

Epsilyte, owned by the private-equity firm Balmoral Partners, is one of North America’s leading producers of expandable polystyrene resin. It created Epsilyte after it bought Flint Hills Resource's EPS business in Peru, Illinois.

Major North American producers of EPS include Styropek, EPSilyte, Styrochem, Nexkemia and Dart Polymers.
MRC

SIBUR and Gazprom plan to jointly use the infrastructure of the Amur GCC

SIBUR and Gazprom plan to jointly use the infrastructure of the Amur GCC

MOSCOW (MRC) - SIBUR and Gazprom signed an agreement on cooperation on the use of infrastructure facilities of the Amur Gas Processing Plant (GPP) and the Amur Gas Chemical Complex (GCC), SIBUR said in a statement.

The document was signed by Vitaly Markelov, Deputy Chairman of the Management Board of PJSC Gazprom, and Dmitry Konov, Chairman of the Management Board of PJSC SIBUR Holding, at the St. Petersburg International Economic Forum.

The document contains the main conditions for long-term agreements on the joint use of a part of the Amur Gas Processing Plant infrastructure required for the construction of the Amur Gas Chemical Complex. In particular, a temporary pier on the Zeya River, access roads, areas for transport, as well as railway infrastructure facilities - non-public tracks connecting the construction site with the Trans-Siberian Railway, and the Zavodskaya-2 station.

Joint operation of the infrastructure will optimize the logistics of projects and redistribute freight flows, eliminating downtime and associated costs. The expansion of cooperation between the companies will contribute to the creation of a large gas processing and gas chemical cluster on the territory of the Amur Region, and the acceleration of the socio-economic development of the Russian Far East.

Amur Gas Chemical Complex is the largest enterprise for the production of polyethylene and polypropylene of brands demanded in the Russian and world markets, which is being built by SIBUR in cooperation with the Chinese Sinopec.

SIBUR is implementing an AGHK project for processing ethane fraction and liquefied petroleum gases (LPG) of Gazprom's Amur GPP. The capacity of the Amur GCC, as the future world's largest complex for the production of base polymers, will amount to 2.7 million tons per year: 2.3 million tons of polyethylene and 400 thousand tons of polypropylene. The products of the complex will be represented by a wide range of brands. The construction of the complex is synchronized with the gradual reaching full capacity of Gazprom's Amur GPP. The approximate deadline for completion of construction and commissioning is 2024.

Due to the geographic location of the complex, the products of AGHK will be focused on Asian markets, primarily the PRC market, the largest consumer of polymers in the world. It is expected that the project for the construction of the Amur GCC can be included in the intergovernmental agreement between the Russian Federation and China.

Gazprom's Amur GPP, in turn, will become one of the world's largest natural gas processing enterprises. Its design capacity is 42 billion cubic meters. meters of gas per year. The plant will consist of six processing lines, with the first two scheduled to be commissioned in 2021.

Earlier it was reported that in December last year, SIBUR Holding chose Spheripol LyondellBasell polyolefin technology for its Amur Gas Chemical Complex (AGHK) under construction. The technological process will be used at a polypropylene plant with a capacity of 400 thousand tons per year, which will be built in the town of Svobodny, Amur Region.

According to the ScanPlast of MRC, PP supplies to the Russian market in the first four months of the year amounted to 523,900 tonnes, which is 55% more than a year earlier. The supply of propylene homopolymer (PP-homo) and propylene block copolymer (PP-block) increased. The supply of stat-copolymer propylene (PP-random) has declined.

SIBUR Holding is the leader in the Russian petrochemical industry and one of the largest global companies in the sector with more than 23 thousand employees. SIBUR processes by-products of oil and gas production and thereby contributes to the reduction of CO2 emissions from their combustion. Over the past 10 years, SIBUR has implemented a number of large-scale investment projects worth about 1 trillion rubles.
MRC

COVID-19 - News digest as of 07.06.2021

1. Chemours appoints Mark Newman as new CEO

MOSCOW (MRC) -- Chemoursa, global chemistry company with leading market positions in Titanium Technologies, has appointed Mark Newman as its new president and CEO, effective 1 July, according to the company's press release. Newman, currently chief operating officer, succeeds Mark Vergnano, who has led Chemours as president and CEO since it was spun off from DuPont in 2015. Vergnano will be retiring from the company and assume the position of non-executive board chairman for the rest of 2021, assuring an effective transition of leadership to Newman, said the company.

MRC

LG Chem to start up new steam cracker in Yeosu

LG Chem to start up new steam cracker in Yeosu

MOSCOW (MRC) -- LG Chem, a South Korean petrochemical major, is expected to start up its new second naphtha cracker in Yeosu approximately in mid-June, 2021, reported S&P Global.

The second cracker's production capacity will be 900,000-1,000,000 mt/year.

As MRC informed earlier, in 2018, LG Chem announced plans to spend USD2.4-billion to expand its naphtha cracking center (NCC) and polyolefin (PO) plant in Yeosu, South Korea. The new cracker will supply feedstock to new PO plants with the capacity of 800,000 t/y each.

We remind that on 18 January, 2021, LG Chem restarted its existing naphtha cracker in Yeosu, following the last year's fire. The fire broke out at its central control room at the Yosu cracker complex at around midnight local time (15:00 GMT) on 5 November, 2020. Then, the country's largest chemical company said it was in the process of figuring out the cause of the fire. The facility can process about 1.2 mln mt/year. Initially, the cracker's shutdown was expected to last for approximately three weeks.

Ethylene and propylene are the main feedstocks for the production of polyethylene (PE) and polypropylene (PP), respectively.

According to MRC's ScanPlast report, Russia's estimated PE consumption totalled 744,130 tonnes in the first four month of 2021, up by 4% year on year. Shipments of all PE grades increased. At the same time, PP deliveries to the Russian market were 523,900 tonnes in January-April 2021, up by 55% year on year. Supply of homopolymer PP and PP block copolymers increased, whereas shipments of PP random copolymers decreased.

LG Chem Ltd., often referred to as LG Chemical, is the largest Korean chemical company and is headquartered in Seoul, South Korea. It has eight domestic factories and global network of 29 business locations in 15 countries. LG Chem is a manufacturer, supplier, and exporter of petrochemical goods, IT&E Materials and Energy Solutions.
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