Chevron raises share buyback guidance to USD10 to USD20 bn per year

Chevron announced that it will target share buybacks of USD10-20bn/year, said the company.

The company's “high return production growth” was supporting growing shareholder distributions, the US energy and chemicals major said.

“We’re growing energy supply, lowering carbon intensity and returning more cash to shareholders,” said CEO Mike Wirth.

Last month, Chevron’s board authorised a USD75bn share buyback programme, effective 1 April, with no fixed expiration date. The programme replaced a previous share repurchase authorisation of USD25bn.

The Biden administration has been critical of share buybacks, and in his recent State of the Union address President Biden proposed quadrupling the tax on corporate stock buybacks.

The government wants oil companies to invest in raising production to help bring down oil and gasoline prices, rather than buying back shares.

We remind, Chevron Corp. posted a record USD36.5 bn profit for 2022 that was more than double year-earlier earnings but fell shy of Wall Street estimates, undercut by an asset writedowns and a retreat in oil and gas prices.
The second largest U.S. oil producer's adjusted net profit for 2022 beat by about USD10 billion its previous record set in 2011. But USD1.1 B in writedowns in its international oil and gas operations in the fourth quarter left earnings short of forecasts for adjusted net profit of USD37.2 B.

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Honeywell has been selected by Ecopetrol S.A. (Ecopetrol), the largest company in Colombia and one of the main diversified energy companies on the American continent, to develop a prefeed engineering study for an Advanced Solvent Carbon Capture (ASCC) modular demonstration unit, which will be used to evaluate carbon dioxide (CO2) capture from Ecopetrol fluid catalytic cracking units (FCCUs), said the company.

FCCUs are key conversion process units within refineries that enable the production of gasoline and propylene. FCCUs are also significant sources of CO2 emissions, accounting for 15%–20% of overall emissions in a typical FCC-based refinery, including Ecopetrol?s refineries. Overall, the global refining industry produces ~3% of all CO2 emissions.

Honeywell UOP’s ASCC technology has been designed to capture CO2 from post-combustion flue gases, which are more challenging to treat due to the low-CO2 concentration and low pressure inherent in these sources. In the ASCC process, CO2 is absorbed into an amine solvent and then sent to a stripper where CO2 is separated from the solvent and then transported to be utilized or stored geologically.

Honeywell’s Advanced Solvent Carbon Capture technology is specifically designed for post-combustion flue gas applications, enabling greater than 95% CO2 capture. This technology can be retrofitted within existing plants or included as part of a new installation.

The design target of the demonstration unit is to capture 30 tpd of CO2 from Ecopetrol FCC flue gas. If implemented, the demonstration unit will provide valuable information into the performance of this technology in reducing FCC emissions, with learnings that can be used to inform deployment of commercial scale units in FCC service.

Ecopetrol is the first company in the oil and gas industry in Latin America to set the goal of achieving net-zero carbon emissions by 2050 for Scopes 1 and 2. As a mid-term target, by 2030 Ecopetrol seeks to reduce Scope 1 and 2 emissions by 25% as compared to 2019.

Honeywell’s Advanced Solvent Carbon Capture technology can help meet these goals.

We remind, Borealis will implement Honeywell’s UniSim Live software as early adopters to build process models for optimizing operations through virtual process simulation. UniSim Live will allow Borealis to extend the utility of process models to near real-time process monitoring and focus on early event detection by using digital twins to improve plant reliability. Based in Austria, Borealis is a leading international provider of polyolefins, base chemicals, and fertilizers, and also one of the world’s largest producers of polyethylene (PE) and polypropylene (PP).

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Luberef signed an engineering, procurement and construction (EPC) contract with PETROJET Co. for Yanbu facility expansion (Growth II) at a total value of SAR 555 MM (USD148 MM), which aims to expand existing units at Yanbu facility to their maximum potential production capacity to 1.3 MMtpy in 2025 by increasing Group II base oils productions or introduce the production of Group III base oils, said Hydrocarbonprocessing.

This expansion will allow flexibility for the production of additional Group II and Group III Base Oils based on market demand. Saudi Aramco Base Oil Co (Luberef) has signed a contract with Egypt-based Petrojet for the expansion of its base oils capacity in Yanbu to around 1.3m tonnes/year by 2025, the producer said on Sunday.

The engineering, procurement and construction (EPC) contract signed with Petrojet is valued at Saudi Riyal (SR) 555m, the company said in a statement on the Saudi bourse, Tadawul. The Phase II expansion project aims to increase the production of Group II and introduce Group III base oils, it said.

It will also allow Luberef the flexibilty to produce additional Group II and Group III base oils based on market demand, it said. Luberef, a subsidiary of energy giant Saudi Aramco, operates two production facilities on Saudi Arabia’s west coast at Jeddah and Yanbu, producing around 1.3m tonnes/year of Group I and Group II base oils.

The company’s Yanbu facility can currently produce 282,746 tonnes/year of Group I base oil and 710,000 tonnes/year of Group II base oils, the database showed.

Luberef last week reported that its 2022 net income rose by 31.7% year on year to SR1.98bn on the back of higher margins and sales volumes.

The company had raised SR4.95bn via an initial public offering (IPO) and started trading on Tadawul on 28 December 2022.

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Russia's crude oil exports to the European Union in January fell to around 600,000 barrels per day (bpd) from 1 million bpd in December as seaborne volumes dried up except to Bulgaria, International Energy Agency (IEA) data showed, said Hydrocarbonprocessing.

The EU imposed a ban on seaborne Russian crude oil imports from Dec. 5 and G7 countries set a price cap on Russian seaborne exports at USD60 per barrel over Russia's invasion of Ukraine in February 2022. Bulgaria has secured a two-year exemption from the ban.

To offset the loss of EU trade, Russia has boosted crude exports to Asia. Its crude exports to China rose by 300,000 bpd in January to a record high of around 2.3 million bpd, the IEA said in a report published on Feb. 15. Exports to India, which increased imports of Russian crude significantly last year, were broadly steady at 1.6 million bpd.

Ghana and Indonesia emerged as new destinations for Russian crude exports in January, the IEA added. Exports to Turkey rebounded from a December low of 40,000 bpd to 180,000 bpd in January, but were still well below the average of 350,000 bpd previously.

The EU has sought to offset the loss of Russian crude with increased buying from the Middle East, West Africa, Norway, Brazil and Guyana, the IEA said. In December, Norway increased production capacity at its Johan Sverdrup oilfield to 720,000 bpd from 535,000 bpd, and its operator Equinor is looking at the possibility of boosting it to 755,000 bpd.

Sverdrup, Western Europe's largest oilfield, produces medium-heavy crude that is a suitable replacement for Russia's Urals. Landlocked Hungary plans to cooperate with Croatia to increase the capacity of the Adriatic pipeline that brings non-Russian crude to Hungary, while Bulgaria is seeking to revive a pipeline project to import crude via Greece.

We remind, Rosneft will parnter with Indonesia to contribute USD24 B on a greenfield refinery in East Java province.
The refinery will have 14 refining units for vehicle fuels as well as seven units for petrochemicals. The purpose is to construct a facility which can process heavy crude oil and high sulfur crude oil.

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CNOOC and Shell Petrochemicals Company Limited (CSPC), incorporated by China National Offshore Oil Corporation (CNOOC) and Shell, is one of the largest petrochemicals joint ventures in China, said Hydrocarbonprocessing.

Following the success and outstanding performance of their existing Phase I and II projects, CSPC Phase III will include a new 1.6-MMtpy cracker, creating one of the world’s largest and most flexible integrated complexes.

Shell Catalyst & Technologies’ (SC&T) unique technologies and catalysts have been chosen again to enable this major growth project, due to their competitive advantages and reliable performance. In Phase III, some of Shell’s technologies, including SMPO, PODer and EOEG, will be deployed for the third time in CSPC with the latest state-of-the-art designs in terms of energy efficiency, scale, and flexibility. Particularly on ethylene oxide/glycols (EO/EG) production, the unique OMEGA technology has once again been elected due to its high yield and energy performance. In addition, CSPC will build the largest linear alpha olefins (LAO) plant ever designed as part of a joint venture. The LAO are being licensed from Shell for the first time. The rest of the process includes the Higher Olefins and Derivatives (HODer) value chain.

“We are very pleased to further support the growth of CSPC which is a world-scale asset,” said Seng Yee Loh, VP Sales Asia Pac with SC&T. “The design and operation for CSPC includes SC&T’s technologies and catalysts. The collaboration with the local team will produce operational efficiencies and is expected to help bring economic benefits to the facility."

Roelof Heezen, CSPC Manufacturing Director said “We appreciate Shell Catalysts & Technologies support with the complexities of this project. The reliability of SC&T’s technologies in combination with their advanced catalysts has us confident in the strong results we will see at our chemical complex."

We remind, Shell Chemical Appalachia LLC announced it has commenced operations of its Pennsylvania Chemical project, Shell Polymers Monaca (SPM). The Pennsylvania facility is the first major polyethylene manufacturing complex in the Northeastern United States and has a designed output of 1.6 MMt annually.

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