Aster Group launches new subsidiary Aster Engineering Services

Aster Group (Singapore) has announced the launch of Aster Engineering Services Pte Ltd, which aims to become an integrated service provider of multidisciplinary engineering and plant maintenance services tailored for the oil and gas, petrochemical, and oil and chemical terminal industries in Singapore and the broader region, as per Chemweek.

Aster Group is a joint venture led by PT Chandra Asri Pacific Tbk (Jakarta) with Glencore PLC (Baar, Switzerland).

Aster Engineering Services will specialize in providing engineering, procurement and construction (EPC) or construction management services for various plants and terminals. Aster’s new business venture is set to bolster its integrated refinery operations on Bukom Island and its downstream chemical assets on Jurong Island, facilitating the delivery of comprehensive, end-to-end solutions across interconnected industries.

In conjunction with this expansion, Aster's parent company, Chandra Asri, has acquired an 11.9% equity stake in Hiap Seng Industries Ltd. (Singapore), an engineering solutions provider in mechanical engineering, plant fabrication, construction, and maintenance for energy and process industries. Financial details of the transaction were not disclosed.

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Two of the largest freight rail operators in North America, Union Pacific Corp. (Omaha, Nebraska) and Norfolk Southern Corp. (Atlanta, Georgia), confirmed July 24 that they are in “advanced discussions regarding a potential business combination”, as per Chemweek.

A merger would create a single rail line spanning the US from the East Coast to the West Coast, eliminating costs and delays created by mid-continent interchanges between shippers. However, major shippers such as the chemical industry may consider the benefit more than offset by the reduced competition.

The American Chemistry Council (ACC) expressed concern about the development. “We are closely watching the proposed terms of the deal and will actively oppose any merger that fails to significantly enhance competition between railroads,” the trade group said in a statement issued on July 29.

“The four largest freight railroads already control more than 90% of US rail traffic, with two dominating in the eastern US and two dominating in the west,” the statement continues. “The impact of a transcontinental merger between two of these railroads threatens to leave American manufacturers, farmers and energy producers with even fewer competitive options to ship by rail.”

The ACC has long complained that railroad consolidation has led to poor service and massive rate increases. “It seems clear that railroads have greater incentives to cut costs and extract higher rates from existing customers than to provide quality service and grow volumes,” ACC’s Jeffrey Sloan, senior director of regulatory and scientific affairs, told an August 2024 Congressional hearing on rail industry growth. “This signals both a market and policy failure.”

Union Pacific reported 2024 net income of $6.7 billion on revenue of $22.8 billion. Norfolk Southern reported 2024 net income of $2.6 billion on revenue of $12.1 billion. A merger of the two would reduce the number of Class 1 railroads in North America to five. The 2023 merger of Canadian National Railway and Kansas City Southern reduced the number to six.

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Indian renewable hydrogen project developer Ocior Energy has won a tender issued by state-owned refiner Bharat Petroleum Corp. Ltd. (BPCL) for a 5,000 metric tons per year green hydrogen plant to be built at BPCL’s Bina refinery in Madhya Pradesh, India, at 328 rupees per kilogram, multiple industry sources said July 28, as per Chemweek.

This is Ocior’s second green hydrogen tender win after it secured Hindustan Petroleum Corp. Ltd.’s (HPCL) tender at the same price. Ocior Energy and BPCL did not respond to a request for comment.

Ocior emerged as a winner in the BPCL auction, bidding the price of 328 rupees per kg, below Hygenco’s bid at 332.13 rupees per kg. The tender saw five other bids in the range of 337-635 rupees per kg.

The BPCL tender is the third Indian renewable hydrogen tender to conclude after Indian Oil’s Panipat refinery tender secured by L&T in May and HPCL’s Visakh refinery tender won by Ocior earlier this month.

L&T will use its in-house electrolyzer, manufactured in Hazira, Gujarat, to build the renewable hydrogen plant for IOCL in Panipat, Haryana.

The various refinery tenders are part of the Indian government’s push for green hydrogen, derived from water electrolysis. This aligns with the National Green Hydrogen Mission, where refineries are submitting tenders to set up green hydrogen plants to substitute conventional hydrogen produced from fossil fuels.

Refineries use hydrogen in processing operations and are seen as key enablers of the green hydrogen economy in India.

The tender for renewable hydrogen procurement for use in BPCL’s refinery on a build, own, operate basis for 15 years concluded in the first quarter of this year.
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Asian Paints Ltd. announced a 0.2% year-over-year decrease in sales, reporting 89.2 billion Indian rupees ($1 billion) for the fiscal first quarter ended June 30. The company also noted a 6% decline in net income, which stood at 10.9 billion rupees, as per Chemweek.

Despite the overall decline in sales, Asian Paints highlighted a slight uptick in the paint industry during the fiscal first quarter, attributed to marginally improved demand from urban centres. However, the onset of the monsoon season in June hindered this momentum. The domestic decorative paints segment performed relatively better than in previous quarters, achieving a volume growth of 3.9% year over year, even though revenue in this segment fell by 1.2%.

The industrial coatings business, on the other hand, exhibited robust growth, with revenues increasing by 8.8% year over year, driven primarily by strong performance in the auto and protective coating segments. Operating margins for the quarter experienced a slight decline compared with the previous year, influenced by higher sales and marketing investments.

Asian Paints’ overseas business also showed promise, with sales rising by 8.4% year over year to 7.3 billion rupees, buoyed by growth in Asian markets, as well as in the UAE and Egypt.

In the industrial segment, sales in Asian Paints PPG Ltd. (APPPG), a joint venture with PPG Industries Inc., rose by 4.8% year over year to 3 billion rupees. Another subsidiary, PPG Asian Paints Ltd., which operates as a 50/50 joint venture between Asian Paints and PPG, reported an impressive 11.1% increase in sales, reaching 5.7 billion rupees.
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The World Plastics Council (WPC) has called on governments to focus on circularity in an effort to reach an “ambitious and implementable” global plastics treaty, as per Chemweek.

The WPC made the comments in a statement July 29 ahead of the final scheduled round of negotiations on an international legally binding instrument to end plastics pollution by 2040.

The second part of the fifth session of the Intergovernmental Negotiating Committee (INC-5.2) on a treaty to end plastic pollution will resume in Geneva on Aug. 4 following negotiators’ inability to reach an agreement in Busan, South Korea, in December 2024.

Benny Mermans, Chair of the WPC, called on negotiators to “steer away from contentious issues that threaten the historic opportunity to reach an agreement to end plastic pollution.”

The Busan talks broke down when governments could not agree on several key issues including an overall cap on plastics production.

“At the World Plastics Council we have spent the last two years bringing different stakeholders together to identify common ground and solutions to ending plastics pollution,” Mermans said. “To agree on an ambitious, implementable and equitable treaty, I would urge negotiators to focus on what unites us — building waste management capacity and the circular model we all aspire to.”

The WPC said in the statement that it believes circularity is the fastest and most affordable lever for accelerating the transition to a more sustainable plastics system and ending plastic pollution, while maintaining the utility that plastics offer society. Building circularity into the entire life cycle of plastics – from design, to recycling, to responsible end-of-life – and developing waste management systems “for the approximately 2.7 billion people who lack it,” should be the cornerstones of any agreement, it said.

“The most effective way to accelerate the transition to a more sustainable plastics system is for the treaty to significantly increase the value of plastic waste as a circular feedstock,” Mermans said. “The greater the economic value of plastic waste, the greater the incentive to not litter, landfill or incinerate, and to reuse and recycle instead. This will create a massive additional incentive to increase investment in waste management infrastructure and innovation, and drive growth and employment.”

A number of policy drivers are key to unlocking the value of plastic waste and accelerating the transition to a circular plastics system, according to the WPC. They include mobilizing sustainable finance mechanisms, driving demand for plastic waste through mandatory recycled content targets, taking an application-based approach to high-leakage plastics, enabling the international trade of recyclable feedstocks, and prioritizing product design.

Any agreement should also recognize that countries and regions face different challenges and require different solutions, the WPC said. “A one-size-fits-all global approach to policy and regulation cannot work, and this is why it must strike the right balance between global obligations and national measures,” it said. National action plans, tailored to each country’s unique circumstances and capabilities, should form the foundation of the agreement, it said.
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