BASF to sell Styrodur insulation materials business

BASF SE (Ludwigshafen, Germany) has signed an agreement with Karl Bachl Kunststoffverarbeitung GmbH & Co. KG (BACHL) for the sale of its business with Styrodur, an insulation material made from extruded polystyrene (XPS), said the company.

BACHL is one of the leading manufacturers of insulation materials in Germany, an experienced XPS producer and a long-standing Styrodur distribution partner of BASF. The sale also includes the brand Styrodur. Approximately 50 employees in production, marketing and sales at BASF SE are involved in this business. The affected employees will remain with BASF SE. Subject to the approval of the relevant competition authorities, the completion of the sale is expected by mid-2025. The parties have agreed to keep the financial details of the transaction confidential.

“With the sale of the Styrodur® business, BASF is consistently focusing its strategy on expandable polystyrene with our well-known brands Neopor and Styropor,” said Dr. Klaus Ries, Head of Business Management Styrenics Europe at BASF. Previously, in October 2024, BASF underscored its ambition to continue growing in the European expandable polystyrene (EPS) market with the announcement of an expansion of Neopor production capacity in Ludwigshafen by 50,000 tons to 250,000 tons per year starting in early 2027.

In December 2024, it was announced that BASF had signed an agreement to sell its food and cosmetics ingredients division, along with its production site in Illertissen, Germany, to agricultural commodities trading company Louis Dreyfus.

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Oil transportation through the Caspian Pipeline Consortium's (CPC) system is expected to total 64.4 million tonnes in 2024, which is nearly 1 million tonnes more than the 63.5 million tonnes transported in 2023, Transneft Vice President Vladimir Kalanda said in an interview with the company's corporate magazine, as per Interfax.

The 1,511-km CPC pipeline, connecting oil fields in western Kazakhstan and Russian offshore fields in the Caspian Sea to a marine terminal in Novorossiysk, is the main export route for Kazakh oil, accounting for more than 80% of Kazakhstan's pipeline crude exports. The pipeline can now carry 72.5 million tonnes of crude from Kazakhstan and up to 83 million tonnes through Russia.

We remind, Transneft completed the expansion of its oil transportation capacities towards the port of Primorsk in the Leningrad region in 2024. "The project to expand the oil pipeline in the direction of the port of Primorsk was completed one year ahead of schedule. The project to increase throughput capacity towards the port of Novorossiysk is proceeding rapidly.

The CPC's shareholders are Russia and Transneft with 31%; Kazakhstan with 20.75% (represented by KazMunayGas with 19% and Kazakhstan Pipeline Ventures LLC with 1.75%); Chevron Caspian Pipeline Consortium Company with 15%; Lukoil International GmbH with 12.5%; Mobil Caspian Pipeline Company with 7.5%; Rosneft-Shell Caspian Ventures Limited with 7.5%; BG Overseas Holding Limited with 2%; Eni International N.A. N.V. with 2%; and Oryx Caspian Pipeline LLC with 1.75%.

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Azerbaijan temporarily suspended gas deliveries to Bulgaria for technical reasons as of January 7, Bulgarian gas distributor Bulgargaz EAD reported on its website on Thursday, as per Interfax.

Notification of the suspension of supplies under the long-term contract with Azerbaijan was received on January 6. Supplies are expected to be restored on January 11, the company said.

Bulgargaz said the suspension did not lead to additional expenses on acquiring replacement gas and did not affect the natural gas market in the region.

Such situations again demonstrate the need to diversify supply sources and routes, not only to achieve competitive terms and prices, but also to ensure the reliability of supplies in the event of technical problems, the company said.

Bulgaria has a long-term contract with Azerbaijan for 1 billion cubic meters of gas per year. However, Azerbaijani President Ilham Aliyev said earlier that his country's gas deliveries to Bulgaria would total 1.5 bcm in 2024, which amounts to about half of the country's gas consumption. Bulgaria received 1.25 bcm of gas from Azerbaijan in 2023.

Azerbaijan has gas supply contracts with ten European countries, including Italy, Greece, Bulgaria, Romania, Hungary, Serbia, Slovenia, Croatia, Slovakia and North Macedonia. It has long-term contracts with fixed supply volumes with three countries - Italy, Greece and Bulgaria - and contracts without specific volumes with the others.

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Transneft completed the expansion of its oil transportation capacities towards the port of Primorsk in the Leningrad region in 2024, as per Interfax.

"The project to expand the oil pipeline in the direction of the port of Primorsk was completed one year ahead of schedule. The project to increase throughput capacity towards the port of Novorossiysk is proceeding rapidly. An expansion of the ESPO [Eastern Siberia - Pacific Ocean] pipeline system and an increase in the capacity of tank farms are being carried out," the company's president Nikolai Tokarev was quoted as saying in the corporate journal Pipeline Transportation of Oil.

The plan to expand Russian oil export infrastructure to 2026 approved by Deputy Prime Minister Alexander Novak calls for increasing the system's throughput capacity by 32 million tonnes. This includes expanding the capacity of trunk pipelines to the ports of Primorsk and Novorossiysk by 10 million tonnes and 15 million tonnes, respectively, in 2025.

The ESPO transports oil from fields in Eastern Siberia to Russian refineries and for export through the Port of Kozmino. The pipeline is operating at maximum design capacity, carrying 80 million tonnes per year from the Taishet main pump station to the Skovorodino pump station and more than 50 million tonnes per year along the section from the Skovorodino station to the Kozmino oil handling seaport.

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KazMunayGas (KMG) produced 23.8 million tonnes of oil and condensate in 2024, the Kazakh president's press service said, as per Interfax.

"The KMG group of companies produced 23.8 million tonnes of oil and condensate, exceeding the 2023 figure by 1.3%," according to the statement following a meeting between Kazakh President Kassym-Jomart Tokayev and KMG Management Board Chairman Askhat Khasenov.

Oil transportation in 2024 exceeded the figure for 2023 by 4% and stood at 83.6 million tonnes, Khasenov said when reporting on the company's activities in 2024.

In addition, Kazakh oil refineries refined 17.44 million tonnes of oil last year, he said. Measures were taken to increase production of light petroleum products by 370,000 tonnes compared to 2023 in order to provide for the domestic market, he said.

At the close of the meeting, Tokayev gave instructions to continue carrying out geological exploration work, implementing major investment projects and developing the petrochemical industry.

KazMunayGas is the country's national operator for the exploration, production, refining, and transportation of hydrocarbons, representing state interests in the oil and gas sector.

We remind, Kazakh President Kassym-Jomart Tokayev has signed the law "On ratifying the free trade agreement between the Eurasian Economic Union and its member states, on the one part, and the Islamic Republic of Iran. The respective parties signed the agreement on December 25, 2023, in St. Petersburg. The agreement is intended to expand trade and economic cooperation between the parties.

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