Gazprom has commenced drilling at the Badra field

(Arabian oil and gas) -- Russian state-backed gas giant Gazprom has commenced drilling at the Badra field and will complete exploratory drilling by April 2012, according to a Dow Jones Newswires report. The company, which holds the world's largest natural gas reserves, won the contract at the three billion barrel Badra field in 2009, and awarded the contract for exploratory drilling to Schlumberger.

The first appraisal well reached 4,900 metres on 24 November. After the initial exploration programme a deep appraisal well is planned to be spudded in June 2012, which will reach 6,200 metres.

Gazprom Neft's share, as lead operator on this project, is 30 per cent, Kogas' share is 22.5 per cent, Petronas' share is 15 per cent and ТРАО's share is 7.5 per cent. The Iraqi Government, represented by the Iraqi Oil Exploration Company (OEC) retains 25 per cent.

Gazprom is slated to spend $2 billion developing the field to its expected capacity of 170,000 barrels per day.

Perspectives of development of the polymers markets, pricing issues and other important aspects will be discussed at The Polymers Summit-2011, which will be held in Moscow on November 30, 2011 at the Ritz Carlton Hotel. The Summit is organized by MRC with the support of ICIS. The main idea of the Summit is to find a "the golden mean" between producers and converters. When producers receive exactly such margin of production, which helps them to invest in production expansion in order to substitute polymers imports, and the converters receive such price of feedstock that helps them to compete imported finished products. The Summit site gives an access to the live video of the Summit, speakers" presentations, as well as opportunities to ask questions or make appointments to any Summit partcipant.

MRC

(Plastemart) -- Indorama has called on the Nigerian federal government to hinge its industrialisation drive on the petrochemical industry. Speaking at the recent Rivers Investors' Forum in Port Harcourt, the MD/CEO of Indorama EPCL, new owners of Eleme Petrochemicals Ltd. -Manish Mundra, called for the immediate setting up of what he called the Nigerian Petrochemicals Industry Authority (NPCIA) to drive the development of the sector and regulate the industry, now that many new entrants are itching to get into the sector.

Mundra observed that the recent wave of investments coming into the petrochemicals industry, including the proposed $6billion project said to be the largest in Africa, by both the NNPC and a Saudi Arabian conglomerate, Xenel, planned for 2015, has made it imperative for government to do the needed.

Furthermore, there are two proposed fertilizer plants by the federal government, through the NNPC to which US$4 billion is being invested, with Indian partners (Nararjuna) each with 1.3 mln tpa and five discrete blending plants to be located across the country. Mundra explained that, there was an urgent need for government to move fast in pushing its growth through the petrochemicals sub-sector of the hydrocarbon industry, as he said Nigeria had no reason to linger behind countries such as Singapore that had no raw petrochemical stock.

Currently, Indorama EPCL is building a US$2 bln fertilizer plant and ethanol plants at its present location, as part of an expansion project to exploit the industry further, in view of its conviction that the petrochemical industry in Nigeria was large enough to accommodate many more ventures to meet the rising global demand. The government has been urged to institute a framework to regulate the sector and drive the processes with an authority to act as a one-stop shop for all clearances.

Perspectives of development of the polymers markets, pricing issues and other important aspects will be discussed at The Polymers Summit-2011, which will be held in Moscow on November 30, 2011 at the Ritz Carlton Hotel. The Summit is organized by MRC with the support of ICIS. The main idea of the Summit is to find a "the golden mean" between producers and converters. When producers receive exactly such margin of production, which helps them to invest in production expansion in order to substitute polymers imports, and the converters receive such price of feedstock that helps them to compete imported finished products. The Summit site gives an access to the live video of the Summit, speakers" presentations, as well as opportunities to ask questions or make appointments to any Summit partcipant.

MRC

(ICIS) -- Australia's Base Resources Ltd said on Friday that DuPont Titanium Technologies has signed a deal to offtake at least 72% of the expected rutile output from a mining project currently being developed in Kwale, Kenya.

The agreement will span six years from the start of production at Kwale, Base Resources said in statement late on Thursday, adding that the project can start production in 2013.
Rutile is a natural form of titanium dioxide (TiO2). The company has the option to sell up to a further 25,000 tonnes/year to DuPont over the same period.

The agreement provides DuPont the right, in the last four years of the deal, to reduce its offtake volume proportional to any cuts in its overall high-grade TiO2 feedstock requirements, with pricing to be derived from an agreed quarterly index of market prices, the company said.


Perspectives of development of the polymers markets, pricing issues and other important aspects will be discussed at The Polymers Summit-2011, which will be held in Moscow on November 30, 2011 at the Ritz Carlton Hotel. The Summit is organized by MRC with the support of ICIS. The main idea of the Summit is to find a "the golden mean" between producers and converters. When producers receive exactly such margin of production, which helps them to invest in production expansion in order to substitute polymers imports, and the converters receive such price of feedstock that helps them to compete imported finished products. The Summit site gives an access to the live video of the Summit, speakers" presentations, as well as opportunities to ask questions or make appointments to any Summit partcipant.

MRC

(ICIS) -- The outlook for polyethylene (PE) in Europe remains uncertain with some grades faring better than others, but many suppliers and buyers see little chance of a significant upturn before well into the first quarter of 2012, sources said on Friday. ⌠We hope to be able to stabilise the situation in December and work through inventories in January, said one producer. ⌠We might be able to lift prices slightly in January and February, but that's not sure right now.

.
Production has been cut back in the PE market for several weeks, and currently low density polyethylene (LDPE) looks in better balance than only two weeks ago. Two large LDPE units in France and Sweden are offline for maintenance, and these have relieved the oversupply seen in early November.

On the other hand, some production that had been heavily reduced is now coming back on line.
US chemical producer Dow's PE plants are ramping up following several weeks of heavy cutting back, and buyers say they see the effect of this in the linear low density polyethylene (LLDPE) market, which remains the most fiercely contended sector.

Metallocene linear low density polyethylene (MLLDPE) C6 sellers are still competing for market share at low prices, barely above ┬1,100/tonne ($1,467/tonne) FD (free delivered) NWE (northwest Europe) according to some buyers, leading to shifts in product mix between LLDPE grades.
Price ranges reported by buyers are very wide, however, with MLLDPE C6 talked at ┬1,120-1,250/tonne.

Perspectives of development of the polymers markets, pricing issues and other important aspects will be discussed at The Polymers Summit-2011, which will be held in Moscow on November 30, 2011 at the Ritz Carlton Hotel. The Summit is organized by MRC with the support of ICIS. The main idea of the Summit is to find a "the golden mean" between producers and converters. When producers receive exactly such margin of production, which helps them to invest in production expansion in order to substitute polymers imports, and the converters receive such price of feedstock that helps them to compete imported finished products. The Summit site gives an access to the live video of the Summit, speakers" presentations, as well as opportunities to ask questions or make appointments to any Summit partcipant.

MRC

(ICIS) -- The recent drop in retail gasoline prices could buoy an increase in the number of US Thanksgiving Day holiday motorists, a market analyst said on Wednesday, but others predicted the shaky economy could dampen travel.

⌠Sentiment is that prices are lower than earlier this year, [despite] that they are much higher than last year, and that's pushing people to view things positively, thus making little or few changes to their plans, said analyst Patrick DeHaan with GasBuddy.com.

On 5 September, the US retail average for unleaded gasoline was $3.643/gal (┬.71/litre), according to the US Energy Information Administration (EIA). On 21 November, the average price was $3.312/gal, a drop of 9.1%. DeHaan said prices for the holiday would still be at least be 25-50 cents higher than any previous Thanksgiving, but the prices have slowly come down in the past couple of months.

In addition, recent headlines have brightened the US economic outlook, said analyst Stephen Schork, author of the Schork Report.

The past two weeks has shown US unemployment claims under 400,000, and the Consumer Price Index (CPI) for October was higher, indicating increased buying of retail items, including gasoline.
Schork also pointed out, however, that the MasterCard SpendingPulse has reported lower gasoline demand. For the week ended 4 November, gasoline demand was 8.665m bbl/day, according to the report, the lowest weekly demand since 9 September.

Perspectives of development of the polymers markets, pricing issues and other important aspects will be discussed at The Polymers Summit-2011, which will be held in Moscow on November 30, 2011 at the Ritz Carlton Hotel. The Summit is organized by MRC with the support of ICIS. The main idea of the Summit is to find a "the golden mean" between producers and converters. When producers receive exactly such margin of production, which helps them to invest in production expansion in order to substitute polymers imports, and the converters receive such price of feedstock that helps them to compete imported finished products. The Summit site gives an access to the live video of the Summit, speakers" presentations, as well as opportunities to ask questions or make appointments to any Summit partcipant.

MRC