Alfa reverses losses in Q4 as sales grow

Mexican polyester producer Alpek reported on Wednesday a year-on-year rise in Q4 net income because of lower taxes, said the company.

Alpek reported a Q4 tax charge of Mexican peso (Ps)549m (USD29.5m), down from Ps1.41bn from the same time in 2022.

The following shows the company's Q4 financial performance.

We remind, Alpek, Indorama and FENC announced earlier that Corpus Christi Polymers (CCP) will resume construction on the facility in August. The plant is expected to begin production of polyethylene terephthalate (PET) and purified terephthalic acid (PTA) in early 2025. Construction of the state-of-the-art plan is resuming following a period of pandemic-related disruptions. The new facility is expected to be the largest vertically integrated PTA-PET production plant in the Americas, with annual capacities of 1.1m tonnes of PET and 1.3m tonnes of PTA. It will employ three state-of-the-art technologies.

mrchub.com

MEG spot and futures remained weak in the first half of February along with the the continued decrease in commodity futures. Coal prices decreased and end-user orders were tepid, said Ccfgroup.

MEG supply also decreased both in and outside China. China's MEG imports may fell to a record low in March-April. China domestic MEG output will also decrease.

Local MEG inventory in the US market was tight previously due to the shutdown of Lotte, MEGlobal and Nan Ya. Loadings of US cargoes to China continued decreasing in January and February. China's MEG imports from the US and Canada is estimated at about 100kt per month, and those cargoes are expected to arrive in China in February-April. In addition, suppliers are also inactive to ship MEG to China due to the low price in China.

In Saudi Arabia, Yansab has shut its 910kt/year MEG plant for maintenance. Kayan also plans to shut its 850kt/year plant for maintenance. Sharq is also running its units at lowered rate. Output in Saudi Arabia will decrease apparently in the first quarter and month loadings are expected to fell to about 260-280kt. As a result, some suppliers are also seeking spot cargoes in the market.

PRefChem mainly sells its cargoes to Thailand, and there are no cargoes to China yet. Increase from this plant to China will be seen in March, estimated at about 10-20kt.

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.

mrchub.com

Covestro has accepted a request from CFO Thomas Toepfer for early termination of his contract, said the company.

Toepfer will leave the company as of 31 August 2023 to join European aircraft manufacturer Airbus as CFO, ahead of his current contract which is due to expire on 31 March 2026.

Covestro’s Supervisory Board has started its search for a successor and will make an announcement in due course. Toepfer will continue in his role as CFO and Labour Director until he leaves the company.

Toepfer has been a member of Covestro’s management board since April 2018 as CFO and is responsible for Accounting, Controlling, and Finance. He has additionally held the position of Labour Director since 2019.

We remind, Covestro has successfully started up a new world-scale facility for the production of chlorine in Tarragona, Spain. It is the first world-scale production plant for chlorine based upon the highly innovative and energy efficient ODC (oxygen depolarized cathode) technology invented by Covestro and its partners.

mrchub.com

Huntsman Corporation announced on Wednesday that it has secured all regulatory approvals required to complete the sale of its textile effects division to Archroma, a portfolio company of SK Capital Partners, said the company.

Both parties expect the transaction to close 28 February. The agreed purchase price was $593m in cash plus assumed pension liabilities, and Huntsman expects the net after tax cash proceeds to be approximately $540m before customary post-closing adjustments.

"Our teams have been working diligently since we signed the purchase agreement last August to get this deal to closing and, when we secured approval from the Indian competition law authority last week, we quickly put the final steps in place to complete the transaction on 28 February," Peter Huntsman, chairman, president, and CEO, said.

We remind, Huntsman Corporation announced the start of commercial operation of a new methylene diphenyl diisocyanate (MDI) splitter at its Geismar site in Louisiana. The USD180 million splitter gives Huntsman the ability to produce more high value, differentiated grades from the crude MDI manufactured at the plant, thereby enabling growth in key customer applications.

mrchub.com

North American chemical railcar traffic fell for a 21st straight week, with loadings for the week ended 11 February down 2.6% year on year to 46,254, led by a 5.8% decline in the US, according to the latest freight rail data by the Association of American Railroads (AAR).

For the first six weeks of 2023 ended 11 February, North American chemical rail traffic was down 5.2% year on year to 264,053 railcar loadings, with US traffic down by 9.1%, to 187,166 loadings.

In the US, chemical railcar loadings represent about 20% of chemical transportation by tonnage, with trucks, barges and pipelines carrying the rest. In Canada, chemical producers rely on rail to ship more than 70% of their products, with some exclusively using rail.

We remind, North American chemical railcar traffic fell for a 20th straight week, with loadings for the week ended 4 February down 2.0% year on year to 45,381, led by a 3.5% decline in the US. For the first five weeks of 2023 ended 4 February, North American chemical rail traffic was down 5.6% year on year to 218,205 railcar loadings, with US traffic down by 9.8% or 154,499 loadings.

mrchub.com