LyondellBasell finds no buyer for Berre, France refinery

(Lyondellbasell) -- LyondellBasell announced that the sales offering for the 105,000 barrels-per-day refinery in Berre, France has resulted in no offer to purchase the refinery. As a result, Compagnie Petrochimique de Berre S.A.S. (CPB), the refinery operator, intends to initiate consultations with its works councils, as defined under French law, on a project to cease refinery operations.

"After conducting a thorough sales offering that included reaching out to 85 entities throughout the world with the assistance of Barclays Capital and the Invest in France Agency (AFII), unfortunately not a single bid was received for the refinery," said Jean Gadbois, General Manager of the Berre site.

The petrochemical assets at Berre include a steam cracker and world-scale polypropylene and polyethylene plants owned and operated by another LyondellBasell subsidiary. The potential closure would not affect depot operations or the petrochemical plants and third-party facilities at Berre.

MRC

(BASF) -- BASF has signed a contract with EuroChem, Moscow, Russia, to sell its fertilizer activities in Antwerp, Belgium. BASF also plans to sell its 50% share of the joint venture PEC-Rhin in Ottmarsheim, France, to EuroChem. The total transaction value is expected to be approximately EUR 700 million. The divestments are subject to approval by the appropriate antitrust authorities. BASF plans to complete the transactions by the end of the first quarter of 2012.


In Antwerp, the scope includes plants for CAN/AN (calcium ammonium nitrate/ammonium nitrate) fertilizers, Nitrophoska fertilizers and nitrophosphoric acid as well as three related nitric acid plants. BASF is in the process to carve out the activities into a separate company. About 330 employees will transfer to the new company which will be acquired by EuroChem.


BASF also plans to sell its shares in PEC-Rhin, which produces CAN/AN fertilizers and the respective intermediates, ammonia and nitric acid. The company is a 50-50 joint venture with GPN, a member of the French Total group, and currently has about 190 employees.


MRC

(ICIS) -- Higher prices allowed South Korea's petrochemical exports in August to increase 36.5% year on year to USD 5.32bn (EUR 3.94bn), bolstering hopes that the value of monthly shipments will remain strong through end-2011 despite a weakening of global demand, analysts said on Monday.
The US, the world's biggest economy, is in a fragile state, while the eurozone is deep in its debt troubles. Meanwhile, China - South Korea's main export market for petrochemicals - is beset with its own problems of reining in inflation, creating a credit crunch within the country.
Against the gloomy global economic backdrop, demand prospects for South Korea's exports do no look very promising.

South Korea's overall exports to the US in August fell by 5.9% in the first 20 days in August while total shipments to China rose by 16.5%, according to the country's Ministry Knowledge Economy (MKE). Meanwhile, export volumes of most of South Korea's major petrochemical products grew on a year-on-year basis in August, according to data from Korea International Trade Association (KITA) showed.

MRC

(ICIS) -- Asia's MTBE prices may drift lower in the last quarter of the year as a jittery global economy, accompanied by volatile crude values, will likely dampen demand for the octane booster in gasoline, traders said on Tuesday.

Spot MTBE prices were at USD 1,069-1,071/tonne (EUR 791-793/tonne) FOB (free on board) Singapore on Monday, down by an average of USD 45/tonne from USD 1,104-1,126/tonne in the week ended 23 September, ICIS data showed.

A slew of dismal economic data from Europe, the US and China sent global equities markets tumbling and crude prices falling by about $5/bbl on 22 September. Investors fled to the safety of bonds that significantly strengthened the US dollar. However, crude futures bounced higher on Tuesday, buoyed by news that the European Central Bank may work towards implementing more aggressive measures to remedy the region's mounting debt crisis.

MRC

(RIA Novosti) -- Russia's oil giant Rosneft plans to increase its annual oil production output to 160-180 million tons (1,170-1,320 mln bbl) per year by 2020, company's Vice President Gani Gilayev said on Tuesday. Gilayev said that Rosneft oil production in 2010 was estimated at 119.6 million tons and the company's future plans envisage an annual production of 132 million tons by 2015 and the subsequent increase of up to 160-180 million tons by 2020. He said the company intends to up its oil output by increasing production in Russia's Siberian and Far Eastern regions.

MRC