Shell completes acquisition of 1,400 retail outlets in the U.S.

Shell Retail and Convenience Operations LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Shell Oil Products US, has completed the acquisition of certain company-owned fuel and convenience retail sites from the Landmark group of companies, said Fuelsandlubes.

The acquisition also includes supply agreements for the independently operated fuel and convenience sites. Building on the strength of its existing networks, this acquisition brings Shell closer to its customers and enhances Shell’s market presence by growing its mobility footprint in a key region in the U.S., which is one of the largest fuels and convenience retail markets in the world.

On October 26, 2021, Shell announced it had reached an agreement to purchase the Landmark fuel and convenience network. The agreement has been adjusted to remove 64 company-owned Landmark sites, which currently sell ExxonMobil branded fuels, as well as removing fuel supply agreements for nine dealer-owned sites, which currently sell Chevron and Texaco branded fuels. There is no change in the agreement for sites within Texas Petroleum Group, LLC (TPG), previously a 50-50 joint venture between Equilon Enterprises LLC (d/b/a Shell Oil Products US) and Landmark Industries Holdings, Ltd.

TPG will be a wholly owned subsidiary of Shell Retail and Convenience Operations LLC, within Shell’s Downstream Mobility business. More than 1,400 Landmark team members enable Shell to grow its company-owned network in the U.S. Shell, through wholesalers, dealers, and JV partners, currently own and operate more than 13,000 Shell-branded sites across the U.S.

With this acquisition, Shell is advancing its Powering Progress strategy in three ways: by growing its retail footprint in a core market; by providing opportunities to offer customers expanded fuelling options, including electric vehicle charging, hydrogen, biofuels and lower-carbon premium fuels, and by allowing for the growth of non-fuel sales through an enhanced convenience offering.

As per MRC, Shell is building larger vessels that can carry more carbon dioxide over longer distances as part of the company's plans to expand its carbon capture storage (CCS) business globally. The ability to ship large volumes of CO2 from industrial sites to offshore CCS hubs is critical in improving the economies of scale for these projects. CCS is aimed at decarbonising heavy industries such as refining, cement and steel.

Shell is a British-Dutch oil and gas concern engaged in the extraction, processing and marketing of hydrocarbons in more than 70 countries.
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LyondellBasell announced its board of directors has declared a special dividend of USD5.20 per share and a quarterly dividend of USD1.19 per share, said the company.

The quarterly dividend represents a 5 percent increase over the company's first quarter 2022 dividend. The special and quarterly dividends will both be paid on June 13, 2022 to shareholders of record as of June 6, 2022, with an ex-dividend date of June 3, 2022.

"LyondellBasell established new records for cash generation in 2021 and we have a strong outlook for our company. Capital returns have always been an important component of LyondellBasell's value proposition for shareholders. 2022 will mark our 12th consecutive year of regular dividend growth. The combination of today's special and quarterly dividends returns $2.1 billion to shareholders. As the incoming CEO, I would like to make it very clear that I support the continuation of our balanced and disciplined capital allocation strategy with both dividends and share repurchases playing a central role," said Peter Vanacker, CEO of LyondellBasell.

"As a management team, we are confident that strong markets for our products and accretive growth underway from investments in our asset base will continue to provide significant cash generation. Our investment-grade balance sheet, disciplined approach to growth and focus on safety, sustainability and circularity provide a powerful foundation for advancing LyondellBasell's leading positions over the coming years," said Vanacker.

As per MRC, LyondellBasell announced that Levima Green (Shandong) Advanced Materials Co., Ltd. will use LyondellBasell’s Lupotech T high-pressure polyethylene technology at a new site. The Lupotech T process technology will be used for a 200 kiloton per year (KTA) vinyl acetate copolymer (EVA) line. The new line will be located in the Zaozhuang City, Shandong Province, P.R. of China.
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Occidental’s Low Carbon Ventures’ (OLCV) subsidiary, 1PointFive, and Manulife Investment Management have announced a lease agreement for approximately 27,000 acres of Timberland in Louisiana to develop carbon capture and sequestration hubs, said the company.

The companies say that some of the hubs will be Direct Air Capture (DAC) facilities, which will take the carbon dioxide from the air and directly sequester it.

Manulife's acreage will be used to develop and operate a carbon sequestration hub, with access to permanently store industrial carbon emissions. The land offers proximity to point source industrial emitters as well as copious storage capacity, and the company has already filed two required Class IV injection permits for the project.

In addition to this venture, 1PointFive and Manulife are exploring other locations for more carbon capture and sequestration projects throughout the U.S. The lease agreement furthers Oxy's commitment to creating carbon capture hubs to decarbonize the atmosphere.

As MRC wrote previously, Occidental Petroleum's low-carbon unit said in May 2021 it plans to construct and operate a pilot plant that would use human-made carbon dioxide, instead of hydrocarbon-sourced feedstocks, to produce bio-ethylene. The pilot plant will be jointly developed by Occidental's venture capital arm, Oxy Low Carbon Ventures LLC, and bio-engineering startup, Cemvita Factory. It is expected to start functioning in 2022. Bio-ethylene is currently made from bio-ethanol, which is made from sugarcane.

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.
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Azelis, a leading global innovation service provider in the specialty chemicals and food ingredients industry, announces that it has reached an agreement to acquire a majority stake in Ashapura Aromas Private Limited (“Ashapura”), a leading distributor of ingredients in the flavors & fragrances (“F&F”) market in India, said the company.

This acquisition provides Azelis with a strong F&F platform in Asia Pacific, creating a global F&F network, following its 2021 acquisitions of Vigon in the US and Quimdis in France, serving the Americas and EMEA regions respectively. Ashapura’s extensive product portfolio strategically complements the group’s lateral value chain (LVC) in the fast-growing F&F market segment, strengthening the offering and technical expertise Azelis provides to customers.

Founded in 2003 and headquartered in Mumbai, Ashapura is the leading distributor of F&F ingredients in India, representing more than 225 principals with well-established partnerships and serving over 900 customers globally through the breadth and depth of its portfolio of products. Ashapura’s 100 plus employees will join Azelis, along with founders and owners Ajaykiran and Nayan Gudka, who will remain to lead the business post-integration. The transaction is expected to close before the end of the third quarter, after fulfilment of customary closing conditions.

As per MRC, Azelis announces that it has reached an agreement to acquire Chemo India and Unipharm Laboratories’ distribution assets. Both companies are renowned local distributors of specialty chemicals and ingredients for the CASE (coatings, adhesives, sealants, elastomers), L&MWF (lubricants & metalworking fluids) and pharmaceutical market segments in India.
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Germany-based engineering company Linde has completed their efforts as part of implementing the Amur Gas Chemical Complex (AGCC) construction project, as per TASS.

"Linde has completed its work within the AGCC project framework. We are dealing with its adaptation to new conditions together with partners from Sinopec," the Russian chemical giant said. Early in 2020, Linde made the contract for provision of pyrolysis services for AGCC.

The Amur Gas Chemical Complex is the joint venture of Sibur (60%) and China’s Sinopec (40%) for polyethylene and polypropylene production. The capacity of the plant will be up to 2.7 mln tonnes of polymers annually.

As per MRC, Linde Engineering announced it has been selected by Slovnaft, a member of the MOL Group, a leading integrated Central Eastern European oil and gas corporation, to conduct a complex large-scale revamp of a polypropylene (PP3) plant in Bratislava, Slovakia. The revamp will extend the plant’s capacity by 18 percent to 300 kilotons of polypropylene per year, and the storage facility will be expanded from the current 45 to 61 silos in total. The revamped plant has been designed to offer a higher degree of operational flexibility by producing multiple product grades and utilizing intermediate storage to ensure just-in-time production.
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