Sabic eyes 70% output boost by 2025 and operational base in Houston

Saudi Basic Industries Corporation plans to boost its production capacity 70 per cent by 2025 as the Middle East’s dominant chemical maker works with new joint-venture partners and expands its footprint in the heart of the US shale boom, said Thenationalnews.

Increasing chemical production is crucial to Saudi Arabia's Vision 2030 blueprint, which envisions creating higher-value products and jobs, Yousef Al Benyan, chief executive of the company known as Sabic, said in an interview.

The kingdom has hired longtime Dow Chemical chief executive Andrew Liveris to act as an adviser after he departs the Dow DuPont unit on July 1, Mr Al Benyan said. Sabic is also proposing to build a Houston headquarters for its Western Hemisphere operations as the company capitalises on the surge in cheap natural gas supplies from North American shale fields.

A final decision on the Houston project will be contingent on receiving local and environmental permits, according to a Sabic statement on Saturday. The announcement coincided with the final stop by Saudi Crown Price Mohammed Bin Salman on his three-week US tour.

Sabic “has designated the US as a focus of its future growth plans, capitalising on the abundance of shale gas,” according to the statement.

As MRC informed previously, in January 2022, ExxonMobil and SABIC announced the successful startup of Gulf Coast Growth Ventures world-scale manufacturing facility in San Patricio County, Texas. The new facility will produce materials used in packaging, agricultural film, construction materials, clothing, and automotive coolants. The operation includes a 1.8 MM metric tpy ethane steam cracker, two polyethylene (PE) units capable of producing up to 1.3 MM metric tpy, and a monoethylene glycol (MEG) unit with a capacity of 1.1 MM metric tpy.

Saudi Basic Industries Corporation (Sabic) ranks among the world's top petrochemical companies. The company is among the world's market leaders in the production of polyethylene, polypropylene and other advanced thermoplastics, glycols, methanol and fertilizers.
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Braskem swung to a second-quarter net loss of USD281m after earnings were weighed partly by lower sales volumes of main chemicals in Brazil and polypropylene (PP) in Europe, said the company.

Q2 recurring earnings before interest, tax, depreciation and amortisation (EBITDA) also weighed by the "the normalization of international spreads for PE (polyethylene), PP (polypropylene) and PVC (polyvinyl chloride) in Brazil, PP in the US and Europe and PE in Mexico," the company said in a statement.

The company's Brazil business reported a 60% year-on-year decline in recurring EBITDA on the back of the lower international spreads for resins, lower sales volumes of main chemicals and the appreciation of the Brazilian Real against the US dollar.

As per MRC, Braskem, the market leader and a pioneer in the production of biopolymers, entered into an agreement for the acquisition of shares and the subscription of new shares in Wise Plasticos S.A., a company engaged in mechanical recycling. Braskem will acquire an equity interest of 61.1% in the share capital of Wise for an estimated amount of RD121 million, part of which will be used to expand its current production capacity by two-fold to around 50,000 tons/year of recycling by 2026.

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Petro Rabigh's net profit surged by 93.2% year on year in the second quarter on the back of higher refining margins, said Maal.

The operational profit amounted to SR 1.5 billion in the second quarter, compared to SR 1.01 billion in the same quarter of the last year, up 52.5%. The net profit before zakat in the current period amounted to SR2.10 billion, compared to SR1.4 billion in the same period last year, an increase of 54.4%. Profits per share in the current period reached SR 2.41, compared to SR1.56 in the same period last year.

The reason for the increase in the net profit during the current quarter compared to the same quarter of the last year is due to favorable market conditions for refined products, which was driven by the increase of crude oil prices resulting in higher refining margins. In addition, a non-recurring income was realized during the current quarter amounting SR 236.3 million related to early settlement of long term loans, which was classified as financial income under the statement of profit or loss.

The reason for the increase in the net profit during the current quarter compared to the previous quarter is due to favorable market conditions for refined products, which was driven by the increase of crude oil prices resulting in higher refining margins. In addition, a non-recurring income was realized during the current quarter amounting SR 236.3 million related to early settlement of long term loans, which was classified as financial income under the statement of profit or loss.

The reason for the increase in the net profit during the current period compared to the same period of last year is due to favorable market conditions for refined products, which was driven by the increase of crude oil prices resulting in higher refining margins. In addition, a non-recurring income was realized during the current quarter amounting SR 236.3 million related to early settlement of long term loans, which was classified as financial income under the statement of profit or loss.

As per MRC, Rabigh Refining and Petrochemical Company (Petro Rabigh) has announced that it has submitted a capital reduction application file and a capital increase application file to the Saudi Capital Market Authority. The company said in a statement on “Tadawul Saudi Arabia”, Monday, that it obtained the approval of the lenders regarding the capital reduction and capital increase in accordance with the requirements of the relevant financing agreements.
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Indonesia's government has asked state energy firm Pertamina to limit its sales of subsidized fuels so as not to increase pressure on energy subsidies, said Hydrocarbonprocessing.

Indonesia has jacked up its energy subsidies this year to 502 trillion rupiah (USD34 billion), aiming to keep prices of some fuels and power tariffs unchanged amid rising global energy prices and the rupiah's depreciation. This has helped keep inflation in Southeast Asia's largest economy relatively low, at 4.94% last month. The central bank has also said this provided it with room to delay rate hikes.

The subsidy budget assumes sales of subsidized diesel for the entire year will reach 15.1 kiloliters, and sales of subsidized gasoline at 23.1 kiloliters, but current sales volume has already reached around those levels, said Isa Rachmatarwata, budgeting director general at the finance ministry. "That's why I have asked Pertamina to control (sales volume) so that the state budget will not face additional pressure," Sri Mulyani said in a news conference.

Pertamina plans to limit subsidized fuel sales by making consumers register their vehicles digitally so the company can identify whether subsidies have reached intended recipients, its trading unit Pertamina Patra Niaga's Corporate Secretary Irto Ginting told Reuters. However, Pertamina is still waiting for government rules on fuel sales and distribution, Ginting added.

Economists have criticized the government's decision to upsize subsidies this year, saying this would take money away from projects with bigger economic impacts. Said Abdullah, head of parliament's budgetary committee, said the government and parliament are set to discuss the effectiveness of subsidies.

As per MRC, PT Pertamina said it will jointly study carbon capture technology at its refinery in Balikpapan with a local unit of French gas company Air Liquide. Pertamina and Air Liquide Indonesia, signed a joint study agreement on capturing carbon emissions from its Balikpapan hydrogen production facility and storing the carbon in the Kutai basin area off East Kalimantan province.
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India opened its first factory to produce ethanol from rice straw or stubble on Wednesday as part of measures to reduce its reliance on oil imports and meet its net zero carbon goal, said Hydrocarbonprocessing.

Prime Minister Narendra Modi said the project will help cut pollution in India's capital New Delhi, which has been blanketed by smog from stubble burning in recent winters, as well as in the northern states of Haryana and Punjab.India, one of the world's biggest emitter of greenhouse gases, has set a 2070 goal for net zero carbon emissions and has expedited steps to switch to cleaner energy to cut projected emission by a billion tons by 2030.

Modi said India, the world's third biggest oil importer, could not remain insulated from disruption in global markets, adding that the Panipat project would boost farmers' incomes. A combination of oil prices rising well above USD100 per barrel and a strong U.S. dollar have piled pressure on countries which are dependent on crude imports to drive their economies.

Indian state-run oil firms have announced plans for 12 plants in several states to produce ethanol using farm waste. Commercial production from the new 9 billion Indian rupee (USD114 million) Indian Oil Corp plant would begin in three months, India's oil minister Hardeep Singh Puri said. He said India is the third country after Brazil and the United States to produce ethanol from agricultural waste.

The plant will generate 100 kiloliters of ethanol a day, equivalent to about 100 tons. India has until now used ethanol produced from sugar for mixing with gasoline. Ethanol produced from the project will help cut annual carbon emissions by about 300,000 tons, equivalent to taking nearly 63,000 cars off India's roads a year, Sukla Mistry, head of refineries at Indian Oil, said.

India rely on foreign oil suppliers for about 85% of demand, but in the last eight years it has raised the percentage of ethanol in gasoline to 10.16% from 1.4%. The government aims to raise this mix to 20% by 2025/26. India's gasoline demand is rising rapidly as people opt to travel in their own vehicles to avoid a heatwave. "We have saved foreign exchange outgo of 415 billion rupees through blending of ethanol with gasoline and reduced about 2.7 million tonnes of carbon dioxide emissions," Puri said.

Apart from financial savings, the new plant will also help in disposing of rice crop-waste, which is a major source of air pollution when farmers burn stubble. The new plant will use 200,000 tons of rice straw.

As per MRC, India's fuel demand in July rose 6.1% year-on-year. Consumption of fuel, a proxy for oil demand, totaled 17.62 million tons in July, down 5.7% from 18.68 million tons in June. "India's fuel demand outlook is improving as the economy is poised for a strong bounce back in consumption and continued momentum for the services sector," said Edward Moya, senior analyst with OANDA.
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