Covestro CEO Markus Steilemann is to become new chemical president

The CEO of the Leverkusen-based plastics group Covestro, Markus Steilemann, is to head the German Chemical Industry Association (VCI) in the future, according to Eu Editorial.

The VCI announced on Thursday in Frankfurt that the executive committee had proposed the manager for the election on September 29 in Berlin. Steilemann is to succeed the acting association president Christian Kullmann, who is also head of the specialty chemicals group Evonik based in Essen. According to the statutes, the VCI presidency lasts two years.

Steilemann has been vice president of the VCI board for a good two years and has been head of Covestro since the summer of 2018. The manager, born in 1970, studied chemistry and business administration at the RWTH Aachen and also did his doctorate there.

As MRC informed before, in April 2021, DSM completed the sale of the resins & functional materials businesses to Covestro for EUR1.6 billion (USD1.9 billion), including EUR1.4 billion in cash.

We remind that Covestro closed the sale of its European polycarbonates (PC) sheets business to the Munich-based Serafin Group effective January 2, 2020. This includes key management and sales functions throughout Europe as well as production sites in Belgium and Italy.

According to MRC's ScanPlast report, Russia's overall consumption of PC granules (excluding exports from Belarus) totalled 7,800 tonnes in January 2022, down by 4% year on year (8,100 tonnes a year earlier).

Covestro (formerly Bayer MaterialScience) is an independent subgroup within Bayer. It was created as part of the restructuring of Bayer AG from the former business group Bayer Polymers, with certain of its activities being spun off to Lanxess AG. Covestro manufactures and develops materials such as coatings, adhesives and sealants, polycarbonates (CDs, DVDs), polyurethanes (automotive seating, insulation for refrigerating appliances) etc. With 2020 sales of EUR 10.7 billion, Covestro has 33 production sites worldwide and employs approximately 16,500 people (calculated as full-time equivalents).
MRC

Christian Kohlpaintner will remain the Chief Executive Officer of Brenntag SE, the global market leader in chemicals and ingredients distribution, until the end of 2025, as per the company's press release.

The Supervisory Board has decided to extend the contract by three years, ahead of schedule, thus setting the course for continuity in the ongoing corporate transformation that has been initiated under the leadership of Christian Kohlpaintner.

Doreen Nowotne, Chairwoman of the Supervisory Board of Brenntag SE: “The Supervisory Board is very pleased to continue the successful cooperation with Christian Kohlpaintner. Over the past two years, he has profoundly changed and repositioned Brenntag SE. He has prudently guided the company through this challenging period and at the same time laid the foundation for further, sustainable growth with Project Brenntag. The transformation he initiated and further developed together with the Board of Management team and the entire organization will leverage the company's great potential and further expand Brenntag's global market leadership in all dimensions.”

As MRC reported earlier, last summer, Brenntag acquired all operating assets and business of Matrix Chemical, LLC. The company is a solvents distributor and the largest distributor of acetone in North America with sales of around USD 200 million year to date in 2021.

Along with phenol, acetone is largely used to produce bisphenol A (BPA), which, in its turn, is used in the production of plastics such as polycarbonate (PC) and epoxy resins.

According to MRC's ScanPlast report, Russia's overall consumption of PC granules (excluding exports from Belarus) totalled 7,800 tonnes in January 2022, down by 4% year on year (8,100 tonnes a year earlier).

BCD Chemie, a Brenntag Group company, is headquartered in Hamburg, Germany. It focuses on the pan-European marketing of industrial and performance chemicals. As a link between manufacturers of high-quality chemical raw materials and users from many industries, BCD Chemie provides B2B sales solutions for a wide range of industries and applications. Profound market knowledge, competent product and application consulting as well as comprehensive expertise in chemical-technical and market-analytical contexts form the basis of its philosophy of modern chemical distribution.
MRC

Cyclyx International and its members is introducing its mission brand, 10 to 90, and associated 10 to 90 Challenge. The 10 to 90 Challenge is a series of new takeback and engagement programs designed to divert more low-quality waste plastics away from landfill and into the Cyclyx system, where those waste plastics can be recycled with the ultimate goal to increase recycling rates of plastics from 10% to 90%, according to Hydrocarbonprocessing.

Cyclyx, in collaboration with its members, plans to bring to market a series of innovations that enable more recycling options for low quality waste plastics that currently do not get recycled. Internationally, only 10% of all plastics produced annually are recycled with the rest ending up in landfills, the environment or incinerators. Cyclyx is working to find ways to get this waste plastic out of the trash bins and into the Cyclyx system for Cyclyx and its members to recycle those low quality plastics in an effort to raise the recycling rates of plastic from 10% to 90%.

The 10 to 90 brand will introduce a set of takeback programs, education, rewards and engagement tools, sponsored by the Cyclyx consortium companies, designed to incent small changes of behavior at home to increase the amount of waste plastics diverted from landfills and into the Cyclyx supply chain. Those waste plastics can then be recycled to a range of products by consortium members.

This new approach has the potential to help greatly expand the range of plastic waste that society recycles, including materials not commonly accepted by traditional recyclers due to poor quality, contamination levels or the chemical complexity of the waste.

The brand’s associated 10 to 90 Challenge is a call to action for individuals within select geographic areas to help increase their local plastic recycling rate to upwards of 90% from the average of 10%. The Challenge will be rolled out in collaboration with municipalities, retail establishments, corporations and universities in an effort to help drive scalable, community-focused solutions that accelerate plastic recycling, locally in the short term with a goal to impact global recycling rates in the long term.

As MRC wrote before, Cyclyx International is in plans to start up first-of-its-kind plastic recovery facility on the Gulf Coast in late 2022.

We remind that in August 2021, Cyclyx International announced that LyondellBasell had joined Cyclyx as a founding member. LyondellBasell, one of the world’s largest producers of plastics and chemicals, is a leader in the effort to help advance the circular economy and has pledged to produce and market two million metric tons of recycled and renewable-based polymers annually by 2030.

According to MRC's ScanPlast report, Russia's estimated PE consumption totalled 2,487,450 tonnes in 2021, up by 13% year on year. Shipments of all grades of ethylene polymers increased. At the same time, PP shipments to the Russian market totalled 1,494.280 tonnes, up by 21% year on year. Deliveries of homopolymer PP and PP block copolymers increased, whereas shipments of PP random copolymers decreased significantly.
MRC

The second largest Russian oil refiner, Lukoil, is considering shutting down the plants. The company has a shortage of fuel oil storage capacities against the backdrop of already imposed sanctions, said Kommersant.

The company pointed out that as a result of the sanctions, "there was a sharp decrease in the volume of shipment of fuel oil in processing and, as a result, the formation of an excess of this fuel in storage facilities."

According to the head and co-owner of Lukoil, Vagit Alekperov, the storage facilities are full of fuel oil, which may lead to a shutdown of the refinery and a decrease in fuel production. To solve this problem, the company proposed sending fuel oil to thermal power plants and canceling high fines for harm to the environment.

A similar situation has developed with oil gas. It accumulates because there is no impossibility to sell liquefied hydrocarbon gases abroad.

In total, Lukoil has four refineries in Russia. In 2021, the company processed about 43 million tons of oil. At the same time, tanks at refineries and oil depots are limited - not all containers are suitable for storing fuel oil, because heaters and additional thermal insulation must be used.

As per MRC, Lukoil entered into an agreement to acquire a 50% operator interest in the Area 4 offshore project in Mexico through the acquisition of the operator's holding company.

It was also reported that Lukoil plans to invest about USD3 billion in petrochemical projects in the next 6 years, V. Alekperova also told reporters in June. At the same time, the company does not plan to adopt a separate petrochemical strategy, he said then.

Lukoil is one of the leading vertically integrated oil companies in Russia. The main activities of the company include operations for the exploration and production of oil and gas, production and sale of petroleum products. Lukoil is the second largest privately-owned oil company in the world in terms of proven hydrocarbon reserves. The structure of Lukoil includes one of the largest petrochemical enterprises in Russia - Stavrolen.

mrchub.com

Energy consultant Adriano Pires has backed out of the Brazilian government's nomination for him to take the helm at Petrobras, the country's Mines and Energy Ministry said on Monday, in the latest blow to succession plans at the state-run oil company, reported Reuters.

"It was clear to me that I could not reconcile my consulting work with the exercise of Petrobras' command," Pires wrote in a letter published by the ministry on its website.

Pires' decision to turn down the chief executive job came a day after soccer magnate Rodolfo Landim declined a nomination to chair the board of Petroleo Brasileiro SA, as the company is formally known.

Pires had been tapped by Brazilian President Jair Bolsonaro to take over as the top executive of Petrobras on March 28, following disagreements between the far-right leader and current CEO Joaquim Silva e Luna over the company's fuel pricing policy.

The government will now need to find suitable replacements for the two top spots at Petrobras just days before the company's April 13 annual shareholders' meeting.

As MRC informed before, in early February, 2022, Brazil’s state-owned oil company Petrobras and Novonor (formerly Odebrecht) cancelled in “mutual agreement” its plans to sell its stake in Braskem. The announcement came after both companies declared that potential buyers did not meet expectations, without providing any further details on the matter.

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 2,487,450 tonnes in 2021, up by 13% year on year. Shipments of all grades of ethylene polymers increased. At the same time, PP shipments to the Russian market totalled 1,494.280 tonnes, up by 21% year on year. Deliveries of homopolymer PP and PP block copolymers increased, whereas shipments of PP random copolymers decreased significantly.

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.
MRC