LUKOIL and BP discuss collaboration prospects

(LUKOIL) -- On June 28 in Moscow headquarters LUKOIL President Vagit Alekperov and BP CEO Tony Hayward discussed the prospects of possible collaboration of the companies in Russian territory and beyond its borders.

Besides that, special attention was paid to the accident in oil platform in The Gulf of Mexico.

According to Alekperov, the experience gained by BP in the process of liquidation of the accident and its results must become the property of international oil community for preventing such accidents in the future.



MRC

Borouge officially signs 3 expansion contracts in Ruwais

(plastemart) -- Borouge has formally signed three major Engineering, Procurement and Construction (EPC) contracts valued at approximately US$2.6 bln for its Borouge 3 strategic expansion in Ruwais, Abu Dhabi. The contracts were signed between Borouge and Tecnimont, Samsung Engineering, and Hyundai Engineering and Construction. The first contract worth US$1255 bln for the construction of two Borstar enhanced polyethylene and two Borstar enhanced polypropylene units, as well as the second contract worth US$400 mln for the construction of a 350,000 tpa low density polyethylene (LDPE) unit, were signed with the Joint Venture consortium Maire Tecnimont of Italy and Samsung Engineering of South Korea, on a lump sum turnkey basis. The annual capacity of the new polyethylene units is 1,080,000 tpa and the new polypropylene units is 960,000 tpa. A third contract worth US$935 mln for the utilities and off-site facilities for the expanded plant were signed with Hyundai Engineering and Construction of South Korea. These significant investments will quadruple Borouge's production capacity to over 4.5 mln tpa 2013, making it the largest integrated polyolefins site in the world.

MRCMRC Reference

Borealis. The share in the Russian market in 2008:

polyethylene - 4.1% (including HDPE - 4.7%, LLDPE - 8.7%);
polypropylene - 3.2% (PP-impact - 7.5%).

Annual sales growth in Russia over the last 5 years:
polyethylene - 11%;
polypropylene - 6%.

Leader in polymers processing technologies:
extrusion coating;
cable extrusion;
injection molding

Formosa reschedules ethylene plant maintenance from September

(plastemart) -- Taiwan's Formosa Petrochemical Corp. has rescheduled a 40-45 day maintenance shutdown from September to mid August at its No. 2 ethylene plant. The change has been made to adjust to a contractor's schedule. Formosa is currently running the 1.035 mln tpa ethylene plant at full capacity.

MRCMRC Reference

Formosa

The share in the Russian market in 2008:
PVC-S - 3.0%;

PP - 0.4%.

Annual growth sales in Russia :
PVC - 79 % (over the last year) ;

PP - 272 % (over the last 3 years).

Supply by processing technologies:
profile extrusion

film extrusion

ConocoPhillips to remain LUKOIL stockholder

(Kommersant) -- US ConocoPhillips will remain LUKOIL stockholder in the next future.

"I don't think it will happen soon. They will hardly decide to sell such a big stake. As a stockholders, they are interested in the Company's capitalization growth and can earn more from it. - said LUKOIL's President Vagit Alekperov.


He also told that ConocoPhillips is not negotiating about selling a big stake of LUKOIL to the other oil companies, reminding that LUKOIL has the priority purchase right.



MRC

Solvin and Arkema separate joint petrochemical business

LONDON (ICIS news) -- SolVin and Arkema will separate from their joint ventures in vinyl chloride monomer (VCM) and polyvinyl chloride (PVC) production in France and Spain, the companies said on Friday.

Effective from 1 July 2010, both groups have decided to acquire their reciprocal minority interests within the industrial entities of VinylFos, Vinilis and VinylBerre.

Following this deal, both partners would regain their respective independence on the production sites in which they hold a majority stake, the companies said.

MRC
MRC Reference

Arkema.