Frederique van Baarle appointed new member of the LANXESS Board of Management

MOSCOW (MRC) -- Frederique van Baarle is moving up to the Management Board of Cologne-based specialty chemicals company LANXESS. The Supervisory Board has appointed the 51-year-old as Labor Director, said the company.

She takes over this function from Management Board member Anno Borkowsky. Van Baarle currently heads the High Performance Materials business unit at LANXESS, which is to be incorporated into a planned joint venture for high-performance plastics with private equity firm Advent. She will take up her new position on the Management Board as soon as this transaction is completed. Van Baarle will also assume board responsibility for the Americas region from the second half of 2023. She will perform her new role from Pittsburgh, LANXESS' U.S. headquarters.

LANXESS CEO Matthias Zachert: "Frederique van Baarle has led one of our largest business units very successfully. She knows LANXESS like only a few others. I am very much looking forward to working with her on the Board of Management. The fact that she will perform her duties from the U.S. underscores how important this growth market is for us."

Frederique van Baarle began her career in the chemical industry in 2000 at the Dutch company Royal DSM after studying business administration, earning an MBA and graduating from the French business school INSEAD. At Royal DSM she held various management positions. In 2011, she joined LANXESS and took on various management positions in sales and marketing in the then High Performance Elastomers business unit and in the business unit High Performance Materials. The native Dutchwoman was responsible for central purchasing and logistics at LANXESS since the end of 2018. She has been heading the High Performance Materials business unit since June 2020.

We remind, on 31st May 2022, Advent and LANXESS announced the joint, Advent controlled, acquisition of DSM Engineering Materials, alongside its combination with LANXESS High-Performance Materials (subject to competition clearance), to establish a leading global engineering materials company with sales of around EUR 3 bn.

LANXESS is a leading specialty chemicals company with sales of EUR 6.1 billion in 2021. The company currently has about 13,200 employees in 33 countries. The core business of LANXESS is the development, manufacturing and marketing of chemical intermediates, additives and consumer protection products. LANXESS is listed in the leading sustainability indices Dow Jones Sustainability Index (DJSI World and Europe) and FTSE4Good.
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MOSCOW (MRC) -- Wood has been awarded the front-end engineering design (FEED) scope for Gen2 Energy’s green hydrogen production facility, located in Mosjoen in northern Norway, said the company.

Gen2 Energy is a Norwegian company dedicated to developing, building, owning and operating an integrated value chain for green hydrogen. The company targets having several large-scale production facilities for green hydrogen, making it easy and cost efficient for consumers to adapt to green hydrogen.

As a leader in hydrogen production solutions, Wood will apply its decades of hydrogen expertise and breadth of project implementation capabilities to develop the new 100MW plant – the first large-scale commercial green hydrogen production facility in Norway.

The award follows Wood’s initial conceptualisation of the plant as well as other production facilities that Gen2 Energy is developing to accelerate the distribution of hydrogen produced in Norway via zero-emission renewable energy to the UK and across Europe.

Due to good access to low-priced electricity, Mosjoen in Vefsn municipality in northern Norway is an excellent place for large-scale production of green hydrogen. The first phase of Gen2 Energy's plan is to build a 100MW plant with a continuous production of around 45 tonnes of green hydrogen per day.

This contract will be delivered by Wood’s existing teams in Norway, with support from the company’s global experts from within its operations and projects business units. Wood will execute the FEED study jointly with personnel from Gen2 Energy.

We remind, OMV, the international, integrated oil, gas and chemicals company headquartered in Vienna, and Wood signed a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) to enter into a mutually exclusive collaboration agreement for the commercial licensing of OMV’s proprietary ReOil® technology. The two companies aim to agree on a binding cooperation by mid-2023.
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MOSOCW (MRC) -- Indorama Ventures Public Company Limited (IVL), a global sustainable chemical producer, reported a strong 3Q 2021 performance amid record production volumes, said the company.

The company maintained its positive outlook for the rest of the year and 2022, noting caution as headwinds including higher energy prices and supply chain disruptions weigh against resurgent consumer demand.

IVL reported EBITDA of USD478 million in Q3 versus USD552 million in the previous quarter and USD240 million a year earlier. Production volumes reached 3.73 million metric tons, a record, as the global recovery drove consumer demand for IVL’s products.

As the global economy recovers from the pandemic, consumer appetite and increasing Brent crude oil prices are testing supply chains and driving a commodity boom, with manufacturers running at full capacity. This has driven increases in freight prices and a shortage of materials.

Mr. D K Agarwal, CEO of Indorama Ventures, said, “The recovery in major economies from the pandemic has benefited us through the year, and we expect strong demand for our products to continue into next year. However, the recovery is uneven as some nations in Asia are slower to reopen, and resurgent consumer demand is being met with higher energy prices and supply chain disruptions. Our business model of integrated and regional supply across a diversified geographical and product base is proving its robustness. Building sustainability across all our businesses is a key focus as our colleagues work tirelessly towards a future ready organization."

Still, IVL posted a solid YTD performance, ending the first nine months of 2021 with EBITDA of USD1,512 million, up 123% YoY. The Integrated Oxides & Derivatives (IOD) segment will start to reap the full benefits of the hot commissioning of the Lake Charles gas cracker (IVOL) in Q4 and beyond, as well as continued advantaged shale gas economics.

In Q3, Project Olympus, the company’s cost saving and business transformation project, achieved US$63 million in efficiency gains, and is on track to achieve a total US$610 million of savings by 2023. IVL also implemented enhanced disclosures in governance, strategy, risk management, and metrics and targets, and launched a comprehensive financial policy and governance structure to accelerate environmentally driven projects.

We remind, Indorama Ventures Public Company Limited (IVL), a global sustainable chemical company, celebrated the completion of a plant to manufacture high-performance nylon yarn for automobile airbags. The new plant in Rayong, Thailand, was constructed by Toyobo Indorama Advanced Fibers Co., Ltd. (TIAF), a joint venture that Indorama Ventures established with Toyobo Co., Ltd in November 2020.
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MOSCOW (MRC) -- PJSC Lukoil finished construction of a Petroleum Residue Recycling Facility with production capacity of 2.1 million tonnes per year at its LUKOIL-Nizhegorodnefteorgsintez LLC refinery, said the company.

The facility is comprised of a delayed coking unit, diesel fuel and gasoline hydrotreatment unit, fractioning column, hydrogen and sulphur production unit, as well as infrastructure facilities.

Implementation of the project will allow to increase annual Euro 5 diesel production by 1.1 million tonnes, decrease fuel oil share in production mix, as well as create over 200 high-tech jobs in the region.

The construction of the facility started in 2018. Up to 7 thousand people worked every day at the 430 thousand m2 construction site.

We remind, Italian authorities have provided Lukoil with a "comfort letter" to help a refinery it owns in Sicily get bank financing to buy non-Russian oil and remain operational. The move is aimed at staving off worries that Lukoil's ISAB refinery, which accounts for around 20% of Italian refining capacity, stops working due to an embargo on seaborne Russian oil that comes into force on Dec. 5. ISAB has been forced to rely solely on Russian oil after creditor banks halted financing and stopped providing guarantees needed to buy oil from alternative suppliers.

Lukoil is one of the largest oil & gas vertical integrated companies in the world accounting for over 2% of crude production and circa 1% of proved hydrocarbon reserves globally. LUKOIL enjoys a full production cycle to control the entire value chain from upstream to downstream. Lukoil employs over 110 thousand people who join their efforts and talents to secure the Company’s market leadership.

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MOSCOW (MRC) -- Oil refiner Citgo Petroleum reported third quarter earnings of USD477 MM on strong margins and higher throughput at its three U.S. oil processing plants, said Reuters.

Results for the Venezuelan-owned company and other U.S. refiners have touch records this year as prices for motor fuels climbed sharply on the U.S. economic recovery and on global shortages caused by Russia's invasion of Ukraine. That demand is expected to keep profits flowing.

Citgo posted a pre-tax profit of USD804 MM for the quarter ended Sept. 30, down from the record USD1.86 billion in the second quarter this year. Pre-tax profits for the first nine months this year were USD3.18 B.

The latest period reflected strong diesel demand at the seventh-largely U.S. refinery operator. However, overall profit margins and earnings fell from the prior quarter as processing rates slipped to 89% from the second quarter's 101%, said Chief Executive Carlos Jorda in a statement.

Its three refineries processed 780,000 barrels bpd last quarter, and exported 196,000 bpd of refined products, up about 45% from a year ago. The profits allowed Citgo last quarter to pay $483 MM in dividends to parent Citgo Holding to repay a term loan, Companies that hold debt in Citgo's parent companies are looking to seize its shares to recover debts.

A Delaware District court judge last month approved a sales process to auction shares in PDV Holding, the indirect sole stockholder of Citgo. If held, the auction would pay Canadian miner Crystallex USD970 MM owed from an expropriation judgment on its Venezuelan assets.

Citgo is the crown jewel of Venezuela's overseas assets, and has split from its Caracas-based ultimate parent, Venezuelan state-run oil firm Petroleos de Venezuela. But companies with unpaid debts from Venezuela have sought to have their judgments recognized by the same Delaware court.

As per MRC, Citgo Petroleum reported second quarter earnings that surged to USD1.28 B, the highest quarterly profit in its history, on higher crude processing volumes and stronger margins. The results reflect a sharp turnaround after back-to-back annual losses in 2020 and 2021. Demand and prices for gasoline, diesel and jet fuel have soared this year on the U.S. recovery and global shortages caused by Russia's invasion of Ukraine.

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