LyondellBasell takes Veolia’s recycling JV stake

LyondellBasell said it plans to acquire Veolia Belgium‘s stake in the joint venture Quality Circular Polymers (QCP), which has recycling facilities in Belgium and the Netherlands, said Chemanager.

Currently, the Paris-headquartered waste management group supplies soiled plastic waste to the recycling units, a role it will continue on an independent basis.

With full ownership of QCP, which it founded together with Veolia in 2016, LyondellBasell said it will be able to accelerate its strategy to build a profitable circular and low carbon solutions business to meet customer demand for more sustainable products and solutions.

The Dutch-owned, US-managed commodity plastics maker said it is well-positioned to continue working with its customers to supply the products and solutions needed.

"Demand for circular solutions continues to grow, and LyondellBasell is committed to creating solutions for everyday sustainable living," said Yvonne van der Laan, executive vice president, Circular & Low Carbon Solutions. With ownership of QCP, she said the multinational group expects to be able to produce and market at least 2 million t/y of recycled and renewable-based polymers.

The QCP mechanical recycling facilities produce special blends, using household plastic waste to make products such as bottles, buckets, caps and closures as well as strollers and suitcases. LyondellBasell said it will continue to market QCP polymers under its CirculenRecover brand, leveraging the former joint venture as its growth platform to enable circular solutions.

Eric Troudoux, senior vice president Solid Waste Recycling & Recovery at Veolia, said the divestment of the company’s participation in the QCP joint venture is in line with its strategy to grow its presence across the entire value chain in Europe and worldwide.

While continuing to cooperate with LyondellBasell, notably by remaining a QCP feedstock supplier for several years, Troudoux said the share divestment will allow Veolia to process additional waste volumes in in its European plastics recycling plants.

We remind, LyondellBasell (LYB) said it is moving ahead with engineering for a commercial scale advanced plastics waste recycling plant it intends to build at its Wesseling, Germany, production site together with Germany’s 23 Oaks Investments. The companies agreed to form a joint venture, called One Source Resources, that would operate the facility with capacity to convert the plastics waste generated by an estimated 1.3 million people into feedstock to make 50,000 t/y of new plastic materials.

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U.S. refiner Phillips 66 beat Wall Street's estimate for first-quarter profit due to elevated margins on sustained fuel demand amid tight crude supplies, said Hydrocarbonprocessing.

The company's shares rose 1.3% to USD95.98 in morning trade. Profits from turning crude oil into gasoline, diesel and jet fuel surged as supplies remained tight due to pandemic-era closure of facilities and a recovery in demand.

Margins were also supported by Russia's invasion of Ukraine last year that further tightened supplies. Realized margins soared 91% to $20.72 per barrel in the first quarter from a year earlier, Phillips 66 said.

Margins jumped nearly 71% at Marathon Petroleum and 84% at Valero Corp (VLO.N), helping the company's rivals report bumper first-quarter profits that also beat estimates. Phillips 66's crude utilization rate was 90% in the reported quarter, marginally higher than last year's 89%, while total processed input fell to 1.8 million barrels per day (bpd) from 1.9 million bpd.

"Refining drove the beat...We expect 2023 to be a lower turnaround year for PSX, with most of the work front-loaded in 1Q," said RBC Capital Markets analyst TJ Schultz. U.S. refiners took up major maintenance activities during the first three months of 2023 after running their facilities at almost full capacity last year to keep up with the recovery in demand.

"We ran above industry-average crude utilization, successfully executed major turnarounds and increased market capture to 93%," Phillips 66's CEO Mark Lashier said in a statement. The Houston-based refiner reported adjusted earnings of USD4.21 per share for the three months ended March 31, compared with average analyst estimate of USD3.56, according to Refinitiv data.

We remind, Five Phillips 66 refineries have been honored by the American Fuel and Petrochemical Manufacturers for outstanding safety performance in 2022. The Sweeny Refinery on the Texas Gulf Coast captured AFPM’s Distinguished Safety Award – the industry’s top safety honor – for a second consecutive year. Bayway Refinery in New Jersey, Borger Refinery in West Texas and the San Francisco Refinery’s Santa Maria Plant notched Elite Gold awards, and Ponca City Refinery in Oklahoma took home Elite Silver honors.

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Swiss industrial group OC Oerlikon said its orders fell nearly 14% in the first quarter, as weak filament demand in China led to postponements at its polymer business, said Hydrocarbonprocessing.

Oerlikon shares were up more than 2% in early trading, however as despite the drop in order intake, the company still managed to beat market forecasts on sales and operating income.

Its first quarter revenue rose 5.4% to 735 MM, driven by a 12.5% increase in its surface solutions division, while its operational core earnings (EBITDA) fell 3.8% to ?116 MM.

Analysts had forecast revenue of ?694 MM and an operational EBITDA of 111 MM, according to a company provided poll. "Sales comfortably beat market expectations and EBITDA too, but to a lesser extent," Baader Helvea analyst Michael Roost said in a note.

The margin development was "a touch underwhelming" and polymer processing orders well below expectations, Roost added.

Oerlikon said in February it planned to cut 800 jobs from the polymer processing division after the unit's earnings dropped by more than a fourth in the final quarter of 2022.

Finance chief Philipp Mueller told reporters the layoffs would start in September, but whether they would reach 800 depended on order intake. Mueller added he was confident the situation in China would improve soon.

The polymer processing business, which supplies the textile, automotive and chemicals industries, saw a 28% drop in first-quarter orders to ?298 MM. This took Oerlikon's total order intake to ?681 MM in the quarter, down from ?790 MM last year.

We remind, Oerlikon Nonwoven has commissioned a two-beam meltblown plant featuring ecuTEC+ electro charging system at Wolf PVG GmbH & Co KG in Spenge, Germany. The plant enables Wolf PVG to manufacture meltblown nonwovens for use in FFP2 and surgical masks.

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Solvay’s net profit rose by 24.7% year on year to €460m in the first quarter as margins rose on the back of higher prices, the Belgian producer said.

Higher prices were offset by lower volumes and higher fixed costs amid an inflationary environment.

Pricing measures of EUR421m more than offset the €127m impact from variable cost inflation resulting in EUR294m of net price benefit in Q1 2023.

EBITDA margin was at a record 26.5% in the quarter, 320 basis points higher than in Q1 2022.

The company raised its full-year underlying EBITDA organic growth estimate from the previously indicated guidance of between -3% and -9% to a range of between +2% and -5% versus 2022.

We remind, Solvay announces the completion of the sale of its 50% stake in the RusVinyl joint venture to its joint venture partner Sibur. At the time of closing, Solvay received €433 million in cash proceeds in Belgium which will be reported in the first quarter as cash flow from investing activities (Consolidated statement of cash flows). A capital loss of EUR174 million will be recognized in the first quarter of 2023, mainly reflecting the crystallization of historic currency translation balances.

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Borealis, one of the world’s leading providers of advanced and circular polyolefin solutions and a European market leader in base chemicals, fertilizers and the mechanical recycling of plastics, is launching Stelora, a new class of sustainable engineering polymer offering increased strength, durability and a step change in heat-resistance capability, said the company.

Borealis, the world’s leading producer of cyclic olefin copolymer (COC). It is created using a unique process that combines COCs, which are a relatively new class of clear, high-purity polymer, with polypropylene (PP). The result is a state-of-the-art material called ethylene-propylene-norbornene (EPN) that is suitable for a wide range of technically advanced applications, primarily used in e-mobility and renewable energy generation. This solution offers a sustainable alternative to replace conventional engineering polymers, which meet the high temperature requirements required for the new generation of energy-saving power semiconductors for invertors.

“Stelora is a unique solution that combines enhanced sustainability with elevated performance. We are confident that, within a short time, it will replace existing engineering polymers in a wide range of applications, providing our customers with a cost-effective, high-performance solution that also drives circularity and energy efficiency.” explains Ilkka Pentilla,CEO, Tervakoski Films Group, a long-standing Borealis customer of capacitor grades.

The first commercially available application of Stelora is within a high-heat-resistant capacitor film. This dielectric capacitor film made with Stelora offers all of the benefits of the equivalent made using PP resin as a dielectric, but with significant performance enhancements including exceptional heat resistance, superior electrical properties at high temperatures, and increased efficiency. Stelora-based film is also fully compatible with existing converting lines, so it can be processed by customers without the need for investment in new equipment, infrastructure or assets.

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.

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