Showa Denko appoints new CEO

MOSCOW (MRC) -- Showa Denko has announced that Kohei Morikawa will resign as President and Chief Executive Officer (CEO) to become Representative Director and Chairman of the Board of SDK, and Hidehito Takahashi, Representative Director, Managing Corporate Officer, Chief Strategy Officer and General Manager, Preparation Office for Group Chief Strategy Officer (CSO) of SDK will succeed Morikawa, effective January 4, 2022, according to ACNNewswire.

Takahashi is currently in charge of Carbon and Ceramics divisions, Coating Materials Department, Yokohama and Shiojiri plants and Corporate Strategy Department of SDK.

SDK also announces that at Showa Denko Materials Co., Ltd. (SDMC), which is a consolidated subsidiary of SDK, Hisashi Maruyama will resign as President and CEO to become Representative Director and Chairman of the Board of SDMC, and that Hidehito Takahashi, Director of SDMC, will succeed Maruyama, effective January 4, 2022.

These changes in the presidencies have been decided at SDK's board of directors meeting on 22 September.

Through unification of the presidencies and generational changes in top management, SDK and SDMC aim to accelerate integration of the two companies and foster speedy management of the Showa Denko Group as a whole.

As MRC reported earlier, in March 2018, Showa Denko shut its crackert in Oita (Japan) for a scheduled maintenance. The turnaround at this cracker with the capacity of 691,000 mt/year of ethylene lasted until April 19, 2018.

According to MRC's ScanPlast report, Russia's estimated PE consumption totalled 1,396,960 tonnes in January-July 2021, up by 7% year on year. Shipments of all grades of ethylene polymers increased. At the same time, PP shipments to the Russian market were 841,990 tonnes in the first seven months of 2021, up by 29% year on year. Supply of propylene homopolymers (homopolymer PP) and block-copolymers of propylene (PP block copolymers) increased, whereas supply of statistical copolymers of propylene (PP random copolymers) subsided.

Showa Denko K.K. (SDK; TSE:4004, ADR:SHWDY) is a major manufacturer of chemical products serving from heavy industry to computers and electronics. The Petrochemicals Sector provides cracker products such as ethylene and propylene, the Chemicals Sector provides industrial, high-performance and high-purity gases and chemicals for semicon and other industries, the Inorganics Sector provides ceramic products, such as alumina, abrasives, refractory/graphite electrodes and fine carbon products.
MRC

MOSCOW (MRC) -- Gazprom neftekhim Salavat (GNS, Salavat, Bashkortostan) resumed its polyethylene (PE) production after the scheduled turnaround, according to ICIS-MRC Price report.

According to the company's customers, GNS resumed the production of HDPE after the long scheduled maintenance works from 19 September. The scheduled shutdown started on 20 June and was initially planned to last for one month. The plant's HDPE capacity is 120,000 tonnes/year.

At the same time, 45,000/tonnes per year production of low density polyethylene (LDPE) has not yet been resumed yet.

According to MRC's ScanPlast report, Gazprom neftekhim Salavat's total HDPE production reached 5,100 tonnes in July, compared to 9,600 tonnes in June. Thus, the Salavat plant's overall production of this PE grade totalled 63,600 tonnes in January-July 2021, down by 13% year on year.

OAO "Gazprom neftekhim Salavat" (formerly OAO "Salavatnefteorgsintez") is one of the leading petrochemical companies in Russia, carrying out a full cycle of processing hydrocarbon material. The list of products manufactured by the plant includes more than 140 items, including 76 grades of the main products: gasoline, diesel fuel, kerosene, fuel oil, toluene, solvent, liquefied gases, benzene, styrene, ethylbenzene, butyl alcohols, phthalic anhydride and plasticizers, polyethylene, polystyrenes, silica gels and zeolite catalysts, corrosion inhibitors, elemental sulfur, ammonia and urea, glycols and amines, a wide range of household products made of plastics, surfactants and much more.

MRC

MOSCOW (MRC) -- Brazilian petrochemicals and plastics producer Braskem (Sao Paulo) and Thailand’s SCG Chemicals (Bangkok) are studying construction of a JV bio-ethanol dehydration plant for the production of bio-based ethylene and polyethylene (PE), as per Braskem's press release.

The project would be located at SCG Chemicals’ petrochemical complex in Map Ta Phut, Rayong/Thailand and the output would be marketed as Braskem’s “I’m green” bio-based PE.

Braskem said it would contribute with its technology and knowhow in ethanol dehydration and its bio-based PE marketing expertise, while SCG Chemicals would bring its PE units and production expertise for the manufacture of the bio-based PE. The project would up to double existing capacity for the I’m green bio-based PE, Braskem said.

The partners have executed a memorandum of understanding to perform feasibility studies to jointly invest in the project.

Braskem said the project is aligned with its goals of achieving carbon neutrality by 2050, and of diversifying and expanding its industrial footprint. For SCG Chemicals, the project is part of its target to achieve green polymer sales volumes of 200,000 t by 2025.

As MRC wrote previously, in August 2021, the oil company Petroleo Brasileiro SA (Petrobras) hired JPMorgan Chase & Co as an advisor to sell its stake in the petrochemical company Braskem SA.

We remind that 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 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 1,396,960 tonnes in January-July 2021, up by 7% year on year. Shipments of all grades of ethylene polymers increased. At the same time, PP shipments to the Russian market were 841,990 tonnes in the first seven months of 2021, up by 29% year on year. Supply of propylene homopolymers (homopolymer PP) and block-copolymers of propylene (PP block copolymers) increased, whereas supply of statistical copolymers of propylene (PP random copolymers) subsided.

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) -- Saudi Basic Industries (SABIC), the world's fourth-biggest petrochemicals firm, said its joint venture project with ExxonMobil in the US Gulf Coast has started commissioning activities and preparing for an initial startup, reported Reuters.

The project includes the establishment of an ethylene production unit with annual capacity of about 1.8 MMtpy, which will feed two polyethylene (PE) units and a monoethylene glycol (MEG) unit, it said in a statement.

SABIC expects that this project will have a positive impact on its consolidated financial statements after the commercial operation begins.

It supports SABIC's strategy to diversify its feedstock sources and strength its petrochemical manufacturing presence in North America for a wide range of products, it said.

As MRC informed earlier, in late July 2021, ExxonMobil and SABIC announced that their JV, Gulf Coast Growth Ventures located near Corpus Christi, Texas, had reached mechanical completion of a MEG unit and two PE units.

We remind that a little more than two years after announcing it had selected San Patricio County as the site for its new ethylene cracker plant, ExxonMobil and SABIC celebrated the groundbreaking for the new facility (September 2019).

ExxonMobil is the largest non-government owned company in the energy industry and produces about 3% of the world's oil and about 2% of the world's energy.

According to MRC's ScanPlast report, Russia's estimated PE consumption totalled 1,396,960 tonnes in January-July 2021, up by 7% year on year. Shipments of all grades of ethylene polymers increased. At the same time, PP shipments to the Russian market were 841,990 tonnes in the first seven months of 2021, up by 29% year on year. Supply of propylene homopolymers (homopolymer PP) and block-copolymers of propylene (PP block copolymers) increased, whereas supply of statistical copolymers of propylene (PP random copolymers) subsided.

Saudi Basic Industries Corporation (SABIC) ranks among the world's top petrochemical companies. The company is among the world's market leaders in the production of polyethylene, polypropylene and other advanced thermoplastics, glycols, methanol and fertilizers.
MRC

MOSCOW (MRC) -- A global drive towards electrification of road transport to reduce carbon emissions may cut demand for the world's oil refining capacity by half in 2050, reported Reuters with reference to consultancy Rystad Energy.

"Going forward we will be touching by 2050 somewhere very close to 90% of electrification," Mukesh Sahdev, senior vice president and head of downstream at Rystad Energy said, adding that this scenario would probably lead to a 50% decline in global refining capacity.

Electric vehicles will cut global consumption of gasoline and diesel, but demand for other refined oil products in aviation, maritime and petrochemical sectors could remain high because of urbanisation which will pose a challenge to the refining sector, Mukesh said.

"How are we going to meet those demands with a 50% scale down in refining capacity? I think that's a big signal that we might have a lot of shorts in the sectors which are coming with demand," he added.

"This is going to lead to a significant rationalisation of the downstream assets across the entire supply chain."

For example, cokers, upgrading units used to produce gasoline and diesel, would have to tweak their production to produce more petcoke for graphite in batteries, he said, adding that processing crude directly to petrochemicals is another trend.

Still, global oil demand could rise in the short term. The consultancy expects pent-up oil demand from the COVID-19 pandemic to drive up global crude processing to 80.1 million barrels per day in the second half of 2021 as refiners maximise gasoline output.

As MRC informed earlier, Marathon Petroleum, the largest US refiner, is "hopeful" that the US refining sector will recover as demand for gasoline and diesel picks up, but remains cautious about the impact of the spreading delta variant of the coronavirus.

We remind that in May, 2021, US refiner Marathon Petroleum Corp said its board had approved the conversion of the Martinez refinery in California to a renewable diesel plant. Besides, the company made a final investment decision regarding this project. Martinez, once complete, will be one of the largest renewables facilities in the country.

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 1,176,860 tonnes in the first half of 2021, up by 5% year on year. Shipments of exclusively low density polyethylene (LDPE) decreased. At the same time, PP shipments to the Russian market were 727,160 tonnes in the first six months of 2021, up by 31% year on year. Supply of homopolymer PP and block-copolymers of propylene (PP block copolymers) increased. Supply of statistical copolymers of propylene (PP random copolymers) subsided.

Marathon Petroleum Corporation (MPC) is a leading, integrated, downstream energy company headquartered in Findlay, Ohio. The company operates the nation's largest refining system. MPC's marketing system includes branded locations across the United States, including Marathon brand retail outlets.
MRC