LUKoil to supply Uzbek Gas to China

(themoscowtimes) -- LUKoil has succeeded where natural gas exporter Gazprom failed, supplying fuel to China.

Gas from LUKoil's fields in Uzbekistan, where output generates more profit per barrel of oil equivalent than western Siberian crude, is flowing to China under an agreement with its Uzbek partners, LUKoil deputy chief executive Leonid Fedun said. "We are already supplying and will supply gas to China," Fedun said. "We have a pipeline project, with very good netbacks, supplying China."

Gazprom failed to sign a supply contract with China last year after at least a decade of talks. The company hasn't been able to agree on prices with China, which has instead built pipelines to gas- rich Central Asian states.

LUKoil plans to produce as much as 19 billion cubic meters (119.5 million barrels) of gas a year at peak from deposits in Uzbekistan, Fedun said in June last year. The company provides volumes to the Uzbek state, which has a sales agreement with China, he said.

Sales in the Central Asian nation last year generated USD18 of net income per barrel of oil equivalent compared with USD11 for western Siberian crude, according to a presentation he gave late last month in London.


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Domestic polymer demand starts to improve in India

(plastemart) -- Market players report some improvement in domestic polymer demand in India at the start of March.

Domestic producers opened the month with some increases for PP and PE and these increases did not prevent distributors from reporting an increased number of buying inquiries. PVC continues to be stable. In the PVC market, domestic producers elected not to change their prices at the start of March after producers had achieved some increases in the month of February.

"We elected to purchase some domestic PVC k67 as we found domestic materials to be more competitively priced when compared with the prevailing offer levels in the import market," as per a PVC pipe manufacturer. "We are seeing better demand for our end products today and we believe that demand will remain strong over the next few weeks. We are building some stocks these days and making most of our purchases from the Domestic PP producers opened the month of March with further increases following the significant increases implemented by producers over February."

"We are seeing good demand from the local market for now and supply is a bit limited," commented a source at an Indian producer. "We are seeing greater buying activity these days even after producers' most recent price hikes," stated a distributor.

Domestic producers also opened the month of March with increases on their HDPE, LLDPE and LDPE prices after achieving February increases for HDPE and LLDPE. "We are seeing better demand from the local market at the start of this month even after the most recent price increases and have been receiving a greater number of inquiries from our customers recently," a distributor stated.


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Lukoil plans to resume activity at its PP plant this month

(chemmonitor) -- Lukoil headquartered in Russian has not resumed operations at its polypropylene (PP) production facility yet despite previously announced intention to restart the unit by March.

The plant located in Budyonnovsk (Russia) has been out of line since December of the preceding year following an emergency situation at upstream manufacturing units.

As a result of the accident, a propylene facility and an ethylene unit were closed and supply of feedstock propylene was violated.

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Equate profit jumps 20pc to USD1.05bn

(oilandgasnewsworldwide) -- Kuwait's Equate Petrochemical Company has announced a net profit of USD1.05 billion for the fiscal year ending December 31, 2011, a 20% increase over what was achieved in 2010.

Following its board and general assembly meetings held in Kuwait, Equate president and CEO Hamad Al Terkait said: "These profits were realised due to operational excellence at all production units, as well as the increase in prices of petrochemical products globally as a result of stability in demand."

Al Terkait noted that for the first time in Equate's history, sales value in 2011 exceeded USD2.5 billion as a result of the overall organisational efficiency at Equate.

Meanwhile, Equate's board appreciated Al Terkait's leadership that brought in outstanding global success at all levels since 2001. It also expressed best wishes to Mohammad Husain who will succeed Al Terkait as Equate CEO during April 2012.

Established in 1995, Equate is an international joint venture between Petrochemical Industries Company (PIC), The Dow Chemical Company, Boubyan Petrochemical Company (BPC) and Qurain Petrochemical Industries Company (QPIC).

Equate, which commenced production in 1997, is the operator of a fully integrated world-scale manufacturing facility producing over 5 million tonnes annually of high-quality petrochemical products which are marketed throughout the Middle East, Asia, Africa and Europe.

The Kuwait Styrene Company (TKSC), part of Equate, had also announced a net profit of USD99 million for the fiscal year ending December 31, 2011, in comparison with USD81 million in 2010.
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BASF to increase prices for butanediol and derivatives in Europe

(basf) -- With immediate effect, or as existing contracts permit, BASF SE will increase its European selling prices for the following products: 1,4 Butandiol (BDO) by 125 EUR/mt, Tetrahydrofuran (THF) by 100 EUR/mt, polytetramethylene ether glycol (PolyTHF) by 75 EUR/mt, N-Methyl-2-Pyrrolidone (NMP) by 75 EUR/mt, by Gamma Butyrolactone (GBL) by 100 EUR/mt.

BDO and its derivatives are used for producing engineering plastics, polyurethanes, solvents and elastic spandex and elastane fibers.

PolyTHF is a registered trade mark of BASF Group in many countries.



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