Aramco and PTT deepen energy cooperation in Thailand

Aramco is exploring further collaboration with Thailand’s national oil company PTT, as it expands its downstream presence in Asia, said Hydrocarbonprocessing.

The two companies signed a memorandum of understanding at a ceremony in Bangkok on May 11. The companies aim to strengthen cooperation across crude oil sourcing and the marketing of refining and petrochemical products and LNG. Other potential areas of activity include blue and green hydrogen and various clean energy initiatives.

Ibrahim Al-Buainain, Aramco Vice President Sales, Trading and Supply Planning, said: “Today represents an important step forward as we deepen and broaden this relationship to achieve greater cooperation across a wide range of activities, from sourcing crude oil and marketing refining and petrochemical products and LNG, to exploring blue and green hydrogen and progressing other clean energy initiatives."

Auttapol Rerkpiboon, PTT President & Chief Executive Officer, said: “Today marks a significant milestone for PTT and Aramco as we look to the future and extend our collaboration beyond conventional energy. It also reflects our ongoing commitment to security of supply as we embrace the energy transition."

Disathat Panyarachun, PTT Senior Executive Vice President, International Trading Business Unit, said: “PTT and Aramco have built strong ties around the supply and trading of crude oil and other products. Extending our collaboration across the value chain to include emerging decarbonization initiatives is a great opportunity to strengthen our relationship and foster further business growth. This also aligns with our ‘green and clean’ strategy which aims to reduce greenhouse gas emissions."

As MRC informed before, in June 2020, Aramco finalized its USD69 billion acquisition of a 70% stake in Saudi Basic Industries Corp., the Middle East's biggest petrochemical maker. SABIC reported more than a fivefold year-on-year increase in its Q3 net profit to USD1.49 billion thanks to higher average sales prices.

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, whreas.shipments of PP random copolymers decreased significantly.

Saudi Aramco, officially the Saudi Arabian Oil Company, is a Saudi Arabian national oil and natural gas company based in Dhahran, Saudi Arabia. Saudi Aramco's value has been estimated at up to USD10 trillion in the Financial Times, making it the world"s most valuable company. Saudi Aramco has both the largest proven crude oil reserves, at more than 260 billion barrels, and largest daily oil production.
mrchub.com

Shell has agreed to sell over 400 retail fuel stations and a lubricants blending plant in Russia to Lukoil, said the company.

Known as Shell Neft, the business operates fuel stations in central and northwest Russia, while the Torzhok blending plant is around 200km northwest of Moscow. Shell has committed to gradually withdrawing from all Russian hydrocarbon activities. Deal terms were not disclosed.

"The acquisition of Shell's high-quality businesses in Russia fits well into Lukoil strategy to develop its priority sales channels, including retail, as well as the lubricants business," said Maxim Donde, Lukoil Vice President for Refined Products Sales.

"Our priority is the well-being of our employees," said Huibert Vigeveno, Shell's Downstream Director. "Under this deal, more than 350 people currently employed by Shell Neft will transfer to the new owner of this business."

Earlier it was reported that Shell said that the executive directors, management and technical staff of Shell left the Russian oil and gas project "Sakhalin-2". Shell is also completely halting the purchase of oil from Russia on the spot market and is working to eliminate Russian oil from supplies. The company will also withdraw oil products, pipeline gas and LNG from the Russian market. That is, in fact, it will curtail the network of gas stations in the country.

In addition, Shell in its reporting for the first quarter of 2022 recognized the cost of leaving Russian assets at USD 3.9 billion after taxes. Earlier, she informed that the losses could amount to USD 4-5 billion.

Lukoil is one of the leading vertically integrated oil companies in Russia. The main activities of the company include exploration and production of oil and gas, production and sale of petroleum products. Lukoil is the second largest private 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.

Shell is a British-Dutch oil and gas concern engaged in the extraction, processing and marketing of hydrocarbons in more than 70 countries.

mrchub.com

The BMW Group is the first carmaker to place its trust in more sustainable automotive OEM coatings certified according to BASF’s biomass balance approach, said Hydrocarbonprocessing.

The BMW Group has chosen to use BASF Coatings’ CathoGuard 800 ReSource e-coat at its plants in Leipzig, Germany, and Rosslyn, South Africa, and the iGloss matt ReSource clearcoat throughout Europe. Using these more sustainable product versions for vehicle coatings enables CO2 avoidance of around 40% per coating layer; this will reduce the amount of CO2 emitted in the plants by more than 15,000 metric tons by 2030.

The BMW Group produces an average of around 250,000 vehicles every year at its plants in Leipzig and Rosslyn. As a corrosion protection technology with optimum protection of edges, the CathoGuard 800 e-coat helps millions of cars live longer. Its biomass-balanced version, CathoGuard 800 ReSource, adds a reduced carbon footprint to the e-coat application’s material efficiency, without changing the product’s formulation.

In BASF’s biomass balance approach, renewable raw materials like bio-based naphtha and biomethane from organic waste are used as raw materials when manufacturing primary chemical products and are fed into the production Verbund. The proportion of bio-based raw materials is then arithmetically assigned to certain sales products according to a certified method. This attribution model is comparable with the principle of green electricity. An independent certification confirms that BASF has replaced the quantities of fossil resources required for the biomass-balanced product sold with renewable raw materials.

As per MRC, BASF and SINOPEC have broken ground for the expansion of their Verbund site operated by BASF-YPC Co., Ltd. (BASF-YPC), a 50-50 joint venture of both companies in Nanjing. The expansion includes new capacities of several downstream chemical plants and a new tert-butyl acrylate plant, to serve the growing demand from various industries in the Chinese market.

As MRC reported earlier, in November 2021, BASF increased its production capacity for advanced additives at its wholly-owned site in Nanjing, China. The new asset with state-of-the-art technologies will allow BASF to produce high molecular weight dispersing agents, slip and leveling agents and other additives locally for Asian markets.

BASF is the leading chemical company. It produces a wide range of chemicals, for example solvents, amines, resins, glues, electronic-grade chemicals, industrial gases, basic petrochemicals and inorganic chemicals. The most important customers for this segment are the pharmaceutical, construction, textile and automotive industries.
mrchub.com

Braskem’s first-quarter net profit increased by 67% year on year on the back of a double-digit growth in sales, said the company.

Cost of goods sold in January-March 2022 surged 47% year on year to USD4.15bn, the company said on 11 May.

Recurring earnings before interest, tax, depreciation and amortization (EBITDA) for the period, however, declined 27%, partly on lower sales volumes in Brazil and Europe and the appreciation of the Brazilian real against the US dollar.

There was also “normalization of international spreads for main chemicals, PE [polyethylene] and PP [polypropylene] in Brazil, for PP in the USA and for PE in Mexico,” it said.

As per MRC, Braskem, the largest polyolefins producer in the Americas, as well as a market leader and pioneer producer of biopolymers on an industrial scale, announces the release of three new sustainable 3D printing filament product offerings for the additive manufacturing market. These first of their kind products include 3D printing filaments produced from bio-based ethylene vinyl acetate (EVA) filament derived from raw sugarcane as well from recycled polyethylene and polypropylene (PE/PP) blended filaments with, or without, carbon fiber.

As per MRC, Lummus Technology announced a partnership with Braskem, the largest biopolymer producer in the world, to license green ethylene technology. Lummus and Braskem will license worldwide technology to produce green ethylene and accelerate the use of bioethanol for chemicals and plastics, supporting the industry's efforts towards a carbon neutral circular economy.

As MRC wrote earlier, in late 2020, Braskem announced its latest sustainability ambitions to significantly expand its efforts to eliminate plastic waste in the environment by 2030 and to achieve carbon neutrality by 2050.

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.

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).
mrchub.com

Asian Paints Ltd., a paints and coatings 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 0.2% to Rs 8.5 billion for the period ended March 31, 2022 as against Rs 8.52 billion for the period ended March 31, 2021.

Net sales increased by 18.5% to Rs 79.73 billion during the period ended March 31, 2022 as compared to Rs 67.26 billion during the period ended March 31, 2021.

The company’s net profit fell by 3.5% to Rs 30.30 billion for the full-year period ended March 31, 2022 as against Rs 31.39 billion for the full-year period ended March 31, 2021.

The company has reported net sales of Rs 294.81 billion during the full-year period ended March 31, 2022, an increase of 33.9% as compared to Rs 220.15 billion during the full-year period ended March 31, 2021.

The company has reported EPS of Rs 31.59 for the full-year period ended March 31, 2022 as compared to Rs 32.73 for the full-year period ended March 31, 2021.

“It was yet another quarter of solid and strong double-digit value growth across all businesses, despite the prevailing uncertainty around Covid, macro-economic challenges and heightened geopolitical tensions,” Asian Paints Managing Director & CEO Amit Syngle said.

“The domestic decorative business grew strongly, registering 8% volume growth and 20% revenue growth on a high base, while international business managed to deliver double-digit revenue growth for the quarter despite severe challenges in key markets,” he added.

As MRC wrote before, in December 21, Asian Paints Ltd announced that it will invest Rs 960 crore to expand the manufacturing capacity of its facility situated at Ankleshwar in Gujarat. The company has signed a memorandum of understanding (MOU) with the Government of Gujarat commencing the proposed expansion of manufacturing capacity of paint from 1.3 lakh KL to 2.5 lakh KL and resins and emulsions from 32,000 MT to 85,000 MT, Asian Paints said in a regulatory filing. The expansion is to be completed in the next 2-3 years at a total investment of Rs 960 crore approximately on plant and machinery at the current prevailing prices.

Asian Paints Ltd is mainly engaged in the business of manufacture and selling of paints and coatings.
MRC