Iraqi Oil Ministry announced the deadline for bids in exploration and production contracts

(Arabian Oil and Gas) -- The Iraqi Oil Ministry has announced that the deadline for bids in the fourth round of exploration and production contracts will be either the 25 or 26 January 2012, according to the Iraq Oil Report.

The Oil Ministry is plowing ahead, despite objections from Iraq's MPs that no further progress should be made on awarding new contracts until after the suite of oil laws making their way through parliament have hit the statute books.

In addition to the 45 companies pre-qualified for the auction, 38 more firms filed applications with the Oil Ministry last month, reports Iraq Oil Report.

MRC

(PlasticsToday) -- Plastics and chemicals supplier Solvay, already the largest minority shareholder in Plextronics, a printed electronics company, has invested another EUR 10 million (USD 14.5 million) in that company. Solvay says the financing will support the acceleration of Plextronics' technology development and delivery of its products to customers.

In 2007 Solvay invested USD10 million in Plextronics (Pittsburgh, PA), which is a spin-off based on research from nearby Carnegie-Mellon University. Solvay also has invested in other companies active in the printed electronics' field.

Plextronics specializes in polymer-based materials and technologies for applications of printed electronics in organic light emitting diodes (OLED), specifically the conductive inks and process technologies that enable those and other similar applications. In May 2011 Plextronics announced it signed an OLED lighting distribution agreement with Sanyo Chemical Industries Ltd. Under the terms of the agreement, Sanyo will distribute select Plexcore OC inks developed specifically for use in OLED lighting applications in the Japanese market.

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(Plastemart) -- In a bid to primarily fund expansion activities at existing and new refinery projects, Hindustan Petroleum Corporation (HPCL) plans to raise USD 300 mln in the second half of the current fiscal. Bank of Tokyo-Mitsubishi UFJ, State Bank of India and SumitomoMitsui Banking have been appointed as advisors.

HPCL is planning to build a new 9-15 mln tpa greenfield refinery project in Maharashtra for which it has identified 3,000 acres in the Lote-Parshuram industrial area and awaits state government clearances for land allocation. It is also in the process of reviving its USD10 bln refinery-cum-petrochemical project in Visakhapatnam and is in talks with various firms such as Mittal Energy to enter into a joint venture partnership.

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(Reuters) -- PetroChina will further delay the startup of a planned maintenance of its 200.000 barrel-per-day (bpd) Dushanzi refinery by two to three weeks to late August, an industry source said on Wednesday.

PetroChina had initially planned to shut down the largest refinery in northwestern Xinjiang in June or July, but it postponed the 50-day overhaul to begin in early August, as its 210.000-bpd Lanzhou refinery in neighbouring Gansu province started a partial turnaround from June 20. It was not clear why the repair plan in Dushanzi was further delayed.

Dushanzi, processing mainly Kazakhstan crude oil, was fully commissioned in September 2009 after replacing several old crude oil units with a new 200.000-bpd unit and adding a 1-million-tonne-per-year ethylene cracking unit.

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(Plastemart) -- The European Commission cleared on 26 July, under the EU Merger Regulation, the proposed acquisition of the Suspension Polyvinyl Chloride ("S-PVC") business of the Belgium-based Tessenderlo Group by the Swiss-based company Ineos. The transaction involves two vertically integrated manufacturers of S-PVC, which is used in pipes, window profiles and other industrial applications.

Besides S-PVC, both Ineos and the business to be acquired have a sizeable presence in the production and supply of liquid caustic soda and sodium hypochlorite. Moreover, Ineos supplies ethylene and ethylene dichloride and also vinyl chloride monomer which is also supplied by the acquired business. They are all inputs for S-PVC. Ineos is also active in the market for compounded S-PVC, which is downstream of S-PVC.

MRC