Japan's Idemitsu Kosan to scrap its refinery in western Japan by March 2014

(Reuters) -- Idemitsu Kosan Co , Japan's third-largest oil company, is to scrap its 120,000 barrels per day (bpd) Tokuyama refinery in western Japan by March 2014 rather than upgrade the plant to meet government regulations. The move will cut Idemitsu's refining capacity in Japan by nearly a fifth from the existing 640,000 bpd total from four plants.

The company would continue petrochemical operations at the plant and use the site as a fuel shipment hub. Idemitsu plans to import naphtha from international markets to feed the two petrochemical crackers at the plant with capacity to produce a total of 623,000 tonnes per year of ethylene.

MRC

(Trend) -- As for today, $33 billion has been invested within the framework of the projects at Shah Deniz and Azeri Chirag-Guneshli, as well as those at Baku-Tbilisi-Ceyhan and the South Caucasus gas pipeline, BP Chief Financial Officer Ian Sutherland said at a conference ' Place and Role of the State Oil Fund in Azerbaijan's national oil strategy 'in Baku on Wednesday.

He said 1.8 billion barrels of oil had been extracted from the ACG fields since the project launch and gas production since the beginning of the Shah Deniz project is 26 billion cubic metres to date.

ACG participating interests are: BP (operator - 35.78 %), Chevron (11.27 %), AzACG (11.65 %), INPEX (10.96 %), Statoil (8.56 %), Exxonl (8 %), TPAO (6.75 %), ITOCHU (4.3 %) and Hess (2.72 %).

Reserves of the Shah Deniz field are estimated at 1.2 trillion cubic metres of gas.
The contract to develop the offshore Shah Deniz field was signed on June 4, 1996.

Participants in the agreement are: BP (operator) - 25.5 per cent, Statoil Hydro - 25.5 per cent, NICO - 10 per cent, Total - 10 per cent, LukAgip - 10 per cent, TPAO - 9 per cent and SOCAR-10 per cent.

MRC

(Plasteurope) -- UK packaging manufacturer Linpac Packaging (Birmingham) has touted plans to invest EUR 10m in raising output at its plant in Noyal Pontivy / France. Most of the money is to go towards raising output of multilayered barrier film for foodstuffs, according to Roland Castellanos - vice president responsible for Linpac Packaging's activities in France, Spain and China. The capacity expansion will not see Linpac hire more staff, since the group will simultaneously cut down on the production of less popular PVC films and its derivative products. The new capacity is scheduled to come on stream in 2014. The EUR 10m investment is to go towards raising Linpac's output of multilayered film.

MRC

(MRC) -- The index of chemical production in Russia over the nine months increased by 6.6%. All products, except for caustic soda, showed the growth of production. The largest increase was recorded in the sector of production of plastics in initial forms, according to MRC ScanPlast.

The index of chemical production over the nine months made 106.6%, compared with the same period in 2010, including in September - 101.6%. In January-September 2011, there was observed an increase in production of styrene polymers in initial forms, propylene and other olefins in initial forms, synthetic rubber, synthetic filaments, mineral fertilizers, polymers of ethylene in initial forms. The production of caustic soda, on the contrary, decreased.

In January-September, production of mineral fertilizers (calculated as 100% of nutrients) grew by 5.6% year on year and made 14,063 million tonnes, including nitrogen fertilizers - 7.6%, phosphorus fertilizers - 4.6%, potassium fertilizers - 3.9%. Total production of caustic soda over the nine months decreased by 4.7% to 750,000 tonnes (calculated as 100% of the basic material), which was due to decreased consumption of chlorine by JSC Caustic (Sterlitamak).

In January-September, the production of polymers in initial forms increased by 8.1% and made 3,956 million tonnes. The greatest increase in production showed the polymers of styrene in initial forms - 15.3%, which made more than 193,000 tonnes. Total production of polypropylene increased by 11.8% (510,000 tonnes), polymers of ethylene in initial forms - by 5.1% (1,15 million tonnes). The production of PVC has reached 411,000 tonnes.

Over the nine months, output of rubber and plastic products increased by 15.1% year on year, including this September - by 7%. When excluding seasonal and calendar factors, last month there was 0.7% decline in the production of rubber and plastic products compared with August.

MRC

(MRC) -- The devaluation of the rouble, the low prices from the Russian producers in September - October, as well as excess supply of PVC led to a serious reduction in imports. In August, many Russian companies held back from purchasing of acetylene resins in China. Over the three weeks in October, imports of suspension PVC dropped to 20,000 tonnes, according to MRC DataScope.


After a record in August, the total import volumes of PVC-S to Russia in September fell to38,700 tonnes. Within three weeks of October, the imports of the resin to the Russian market declined to 20,000 tonnes. Deliveries of acetylene PVC from China reduced to 1,300 tonnes, while imports from the U.S. fell to 8,600 tonnes.


Significant cutbacks of the American and Chinese export prices of PVC in October - November resulted in picking-up buying interest of the Russian companies. But import volumes are not expected to increase greatly in the last months of 2011. According to preliminary estimates, import volumes are unlikely to exceed 25,000 tonnes.


MRC