MOSCOW (MRC) -- A sale of Royal Dutch Shell's controlling interest in a Texas refinery to Mexican state oil company Petroleos Mexicanos has been delayed until next year, reported Reuters with reference to a statement of two people familiar with the matter on Thusday.
A review of the deal by US Committee on Foreign Investment in the US had been expected to wrap up this month. However, there have been additional delays, the people said. A person working on the deal for Pemex said there was not enough time left to reach an agreement this year.
In May 2021, Shell disclosed an agreement to sell its 50% interest in the 302,800-bpd Deer Park, Texas, refinery outside Houston to partner Pemex for about USD596 MM. The closing was expected this month, officials have said.
Deer Park refinery employees have been told a closing "has been pushed back to the beginning of next year," one person who works at the Deer Park refinery said on condition of anonymity because the information is not public.
Pemex was not immediately available to comment. A spokesperson for Shell did not immediately reply on Thursday to a request for comment.
As MRC informed previously, Royal Dutch Shell plc. said in November that its petrochemical complex of several billion dollars in Western Pennsylvania is about 70% complete and in the process to enter service in the early 2020s. The plant's costs are estimated to be USD6-USD10 billion, where ethane will be transformed into plastic feedstock. The facility is equipped to produce 1.5 million metric tons per year (mmty) of ethylene and 1.6 mmty of polyethylene (PE), two important constituents of plastics.
Ethylene and propylene are feedstocks for producing PE and polypropylene (PP).
According to MRC's ScanPlast report, Russia's estimated PE consumption totalled 2,047,100 tonnes in the first ten months of 2021, up by 17% year on year. Shipments of all grades of ethylene polymers increased. At the same time, PP shipments to the Russian market were 1,226,530 tonnes in January-October 2021, up by 26% year on year. Supply of propylene homopolymers (homopolymer PP) and block-copolymers of propylene (PP block copolymers) increased, whereas supply of injection moulding stat-copolymers of propylene (PP random copolymers) decreased significantly.
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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