Brenntag Q1 sales, earnings increased sharply

Brenntag’s first-quarter sales and earnings rose strongly despite increased supply chain woes emanating from the war in Ukraine, said the company.

The company said the healthy financial metrics for Q1 were achieved despite the “exceptionally challenging market environment” during the quarter, following Russia’s invasion of Ukraine in February which disrupted even further supply chains in Europe. "In Q1, we saw strong price increases driving the outflow for working capital and thus impacting our free cash flow negatively,” said Brenntag’s CFO, Kristin Neumann.

"However, we continued to benefit from good margin management and were able to utilise business opportunities which translated into a high operating EBITDA over operating gross profit conversion ratio." While the company confirmed its previous financial guidance for this year, it added that the war in Ukraine and its “geopolitical and economic consequences” were very difficult to predict.

"While Brenntag expects a strong first half of 2022, the current environment contains great uncertainties and a forecast for the development in the second half is hardly possible at present,” it said. "Brenntag expects the overall geopolitical, macroeconomic, and operational conditions to remain highly challenging."

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.
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Brazilian state-run oil company Petrobras said on Wednesday it has signed a deal with TSE and Toyo Engineering Corp to build a new diesel hydrotreating unit at its Paulinia refinery, reported Reuters.

The move will require USD458 million in investments and is in line with Petrobras’ 2022-2026 business plan, the company said in a securities filing.

Petroleo Brasileiro SA, as the company is formally known, said the hydrotreating unit is expected to enter production in 2025.

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

A 300,000 barrel-per-day refinery-petrochemical complex in Malaysia run as a joint venture between Petronas and Saudi Aramco has restarted after a more than two-year closure, a source with knowledge of the matter said, as per Hydrocarbonprocessing.

The complex in Pengerang, Johor, is resuming operations at a time when refining margins in Asia are at record levels, buoyed by a fuel demand recovery as more economies across Asia, except for China, ease COVID-19 restrictions. Low inventories of oil products globally and a drop in fuel exports from Russia following the Ukraine crisis are also underpinning prices.

The joint venture, Pengerang Refining and Petrochemical (PRefChem), did not respond to a request for comment. PRefChem was shut in March 2020 following a deadly fire. Its resumption has been delayed from last year for the entire plant to undergo detailed checks, at a time when fuel demand and refining margins were still being hit by COVID-19 lockdowns.

The refinery, which restarted last week, is processing existing crude from storage tanks, which will then be followed by supplies from Saudi Aramco, two more sources said. It is expected to take some time before operations can return to full rates, the sources said.

We remind, Pengerang Refining and Petrochemical Complex (PRefChem), 50%-50% joint venture (JV) between Petronas and Saudi Aramco, aims to restart its cracker in Malaysia this May after more than two years of staying offline following an explosion on 16 March 2020. PrefChem's complex houses a naphtha cracker that produces 1.2 million tons/year of ethylene and 600,000 tons/year of propylene. Downstream units include a 450,000 ton/year homo-PP line, a 450,000 tons/year PP copolymer, and a 400,000 tons/year HDPE unit. The company also owns a C6-based metallocene PE plant with a capacity of 350,000 tons/year.

Ethylene and propylene are the main feedstocks for the producition 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.
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Chemplast Sanmar Ltd., a chemicals manufacturer based in India has reported financial results for the period ended March 31, 2022, according to Kemicalinfo.

The company’s net profit declined by 36.4% to Rs 2.31 billion for the period ended March 31, 2022 as against Rs 3.64 billion for the period ended March 31, 2021.

Net sales increased by 34.4% to Rs 18.15 billion during the period ended March 31, 2022 as compared to Rs 13.50 billion during the period ended March 31, 2021.

The company’s net profit increased by 58.2% to Rs 6.48 billion for the full-year period ended March 31, 2022 as against Rs 4.10 billion for the full-year period ended March 31, 2021.

The company has reported net sales of Rs 59.49 billion during the full-year period ended March 31, 2022, an increase of 55.9% as compared to Rs 38.15 billion during the full-year period ended March 31, 2021.

As MRC reported earlier, Chemplast Sanmar undertook a planned shutdown at its Cuddalore PVC unit in September, 2020. Thus, the maintenance works at this unit began on September 27, 2020. The unit remained off-line for about 4-5 days. Located in Tamil Nadu, India, the Cuddalore PVC unit has a production capacity of 300,000 mt/year.

According to MRC's ScanPlast report, Russia's overall PVC production reached 87,100 tonnes in 2021, down by 3% year on year. Three producers slightly decreased their output.

Chemplast Sanmar Limited is a chemical company based in Chennai, Tamil Nadu. It is part of Sanmar Group which has businesses in Chemicals, Shipping, Engineering and Metals. It has a turnover of over Rs.65 billion and a presence in some 25 businesses, with manufacturing units spread over numerous locations in India.Chemplast Sanmar's manufacturing facilities are located at Mettur, Panruti, Cuddalore and Ponneri in Tamil Nadu, Shinoli in Maharashtra, and Karaikal in the Union Territory of Puducherry. It is a major manufacturer of PVC resins, chlorochemicals and piping systems. The Cuddalore PVC project commissioned in September 2009 is the largest such project to come up in Tamil Nadu. It's aggregate capacity of 235,000 tons makes it one of the largest PVC players in India.
MRC

RadiciGroup is to acquire the engineering plastics group of India-based polyester films player Ester Industries, said the company.

The company will invest EUR35m in the business, which includes a production site near Gujarat that is due to be operational next year. The deal also includes the transfer of compound lines, research laboratories, customer and supplier contacts and Ester Industries compound brand ESTOPLAST.

“The strategy of our High Performance Polymers business area has been based on working locally in the closest proximity to customers,” said RadiciGroup COO Maurizio Radici. RadiciGroup expect its annual sales in India will increase to EUR50m as a result of the acquisition.

As per MRC, Radici will build a new plant in China to increase production capacity, and will sell products in Australia.
RadiciGroup High Performance Polymers, through its company in China, Radici Plastics Suzhou Co, has signed an agreement with Duromer for the distribution of its products in Australia.

As MRC informed earlier, RadiciGroup is investing more than EUR35m to strengthen its global engineering polymer business with new plants in Mexico and China, as well as a capacity expansion in Europe. In China, work has begun on a new 25,000-square metre plant that will boost production capacity by 30,000 tonnes/year.

RadiciGroup High Performance Polymers is a multinational organization with the capacity to manufacture and supply engineering polymers (based on polyamide, polyester and other materials) around the globe, with the backing of a production and sales network across all continents, as well as research and development increasingly focused on high-performance polymers.
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