Huntsman announced 12% increase in Q1 2023

MOSCOW (MRC) -- Huntsman expects a sharp drop in its first quarter adjusted earnings, much of which will occur in its polyurethanes (PU) segment, said the company.

The following table shows the company's forecasts for adjusted earnings before interest, tax, depreciation and amortisation (EBITDA).

It compares the forecasts with the company's performance in Q1 2022 and Q1 2021. Figures are in millions of dollars.

In the PU segment, tough market conditions have led Huntsman to idle two production lines that make methylene diphenyl diisocyanate (MDI) in the US and Europe. Huntsman warned that Europe is in a recessionary environment, and energy costs remain high despite recent declines.

In Asia, Huntsman is seeing early signs of a recovery as China continues to reopen following the end of its zero COVID-19 policies. Signs of the recovery are appearing in the cold chain, which refers to the refrigerated logistical network that keeps food, beverages and other goods cold from the point of production to the point of consumption.

Such logistical networks require insulation to keep the goods cold and PU is a powerful insulator. Other recovering end-markets in China include infrastructure and individual consumer markets such as furniture.

China's outlook is critical for the PU segment because it is the world's largest market for MDI, accounting for more than 40% of global capacity and demand, Huntsman said. For China in general, Huntman expects that consumer goods and the automobile industry will recover the soonest, while infrastructure and other end-markets connected to government stimulus could stage a more gradual recovery. Exports could remain relatively weak, they said.

We remind, Huntsman Corporation announced 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 USD593m in cash plus assumed pension liabilities, and Huntsman expects the net after tax cash proceeds to be approximately $540m before customary post-closing adjustments.

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MOSCOW (MRC) -- The Supervisory Board of BASF SE appointed Dr. Stephan Kothrade, president, Intermediates, as a member of the Board of Executive Directors effective March 1, 2023, said the company.

Kothrade has been with BASF since 1995 and leads BASF’s Intermediates division since 2022. “Stephan Kothrade has proven himself in several leadership roles in Germany and abroad,” Dr. Kurt Bock, chairman of the Supervisory Board of BASF SE, said. “He has worked successfully for many years at our Verbund sites in Europe and Asia and will complement the Board of Executive Directors in an excellent way.”

Saori Dubourg is leaving the company as of February 28, 2023, in best mutual agreement. The Supervisory Board thanks Dubourg for her successful work and wishes her all the best for her professional as well as private future and continued success.

We remind, Linde Engineering (Pullach, Germany) has signed an agreement with BASF SE (Ludwigshafen, Germany) for the engineering, procurement and construction (EPC) of a synthesis gas (syngas) plant in Zhanjiang, China.

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MOSCOW (MRC) -- Cepsa and Fertiberia, two of Spain's largest hydrogen consumers, have reached an agreement to decarbonize their production processes by jointly developing a large-scale renewable hydrogen plant in Huelva using green energy and other renewable gases, said the company.

The companies will also implement other industrial synergies between their Huelva sites. Through this union, Cepsa and Fertiberia have become strategic partners in the project to develop 1 GW of electrolysis capacity in Palos de la Frontera as part of the Andalusian Green Hydrogen Valley.

This valley will have a 2 GW capacity—1 GW in Campo de Gibraltar (Cadiz) and another in Palos de la Frontera (Huelva)—and production of up to 300,000 tons in Cepsa's Energy Parks.

The agreement will meet the hydrogen and biogenic CO2 needs of both companies’ facilities in the industrial fabric of Palos de la Frontera (Huelva) in the most optimal way. Green hydrogen production will begin in 2026, and it will be used for Cepsa's and Fertiberia's own industrial consumption while enabling the manufacture of advanced biofuels, ammonia, AdBlue and sustainable crop nutrition solutions.

Cepsa's La Rabida Energy Park is adjacent to Fertiberia's facilities in Palos de la Frontera. Therefore, the partnership will help to leverage all existing industrial and operational synergies between the two sites, allowing them to be managed as efficiently as possible.

We remind, Cepsa has signed a deal with the Dutch port of Rotterdam to ship green hydrogen from southern Spain to northern Europe. The hydrogen will be produced at Cepsa’s San Roque Energy Park near the Bay of Algeciras, and will be exported through hydrogen carriers such as ammonia or methanol to the Port of Rotterdam.

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MOSCOW (MRC) -- China's Sinopec Corp announced that it has completed trial runs at a 1-MMtpy ethylene plant in the southern Chinese province of Hainan that will boost exports, said Hydrocarbonprocessing.

The facility is part of a 28.6 B-yuan (USD4.15 B) complex built at the site and is the second major petrochemical plant starting this year after a similar-sized facility was announced last week by PetroChina in Guangdong province.

Sinopec is aiming to turn the Hainan complex into an export-oriented producer, with exports of downstream petrochemical products accounting for half its production by the end of 2025, the company said. It also operates a 184,000 barrels per day crude oil refinery at the same site.

Sinopec said it has developed its own ethylene technology with plants capable of handling a wide range of feedstocks, allowing the refiner to process different types of crude oil.

We remind, Saudi Aramco and China Petroleum and Chemical Corporation (Sinopec) have signed a deal to build a refinery and a petrochemicals plant in China. The 3,20,000 barrels-per-day refinery and 1.5 million tons-per-year petrochemical cracker complex will be in operation by the end of 2025, Aramco said in a statement on Sunday.
Aramco and Sinopec, along with Saudi Basic Industries Corporation (Sabic), have also signed a an agreement to study the feasibility of developing petrochemicals complex to be integrated with an existing refinery in Yanbu, Saudi Arabia.

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MOSCOW (MRC) -- The Mitsubishi Chemical Group (the MCG Group) announces that it will start verification testing of a scheme for collecting acrylic resins from end-of-life vehicles, with the goal of commercializing molecular recycling operations for acrylic resin in collaboration with Tokio Marine & Nichido Fire Insurance Co., Ltd. and ABT Corporation1, said the company.

Acrylic resin is used for automobile tail lamps, etc. The MCG Group, one of the world's leading acrylic resin manufacturers, is working on developing a full-fledged business to molecularly recycle and reuse discarded and collected acrylic resins, in addition to manufacturing acrylic resin. TMNF is collecting a number of end-of-life vehicles with the payment of insurance claims due to automobile accidents and other events in the course of operating the car insurance business. ABT has been commissioned by TMNF to work with dismantlers nationwide to properly dispose of end-of-life vehicles, including reuse and recycling.

The MCG Group, TMNF and ABT aim to establish a scheme for the collection of acrylic resins mainly from taillamps by making use of TMNF’s and ABT’s end-of-life vehicle processing network. As the first step, we will start verification testing to collect acrylic resins from about 1,000 end-of-life vehicles in the Kanto region in March 2023. Based on the verification testing, we will verify operation, material quality, costs and other items, and then expand the initiative nationwide in FY2024. This is the first attempt in Japan to recover acrylic resin from end-of-life vehicles using the automobile insurance network.

The MCG Group has been conducting verification testing on the recycling of acrylic resin using microwaves. With an eye on operation of the recycling plant starting from FY2024, the MCG Group is aiming to commercialize molecular recycling operations for acrylic resin. While making efforts to establish the recycling technology, the MCG Group is also preparing for social implementation of the acrylic resin recycling system by considering a scheme to collect acrylic resin from various markets.

We remind, Thai Shinkong Industry Corporation (TSIC), which is a joint venture between Taiwan’s Shinkong and Japan’s Mitsubishi, will hike the nameplate capacity of its recycled polyethylene terephthalate (R-PET) facility in Thailand. As more customers and business partners have expressed buying interest for the materials, TSIC increased output to 140,000 tonnes/year from the initially planned 70,000 tonnes/year.

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