Sinopec plans to acquire an interest in Sibur plant in Krasnoyarsk

(sibur) -- Sibur, a Russian gas processing and petrochemicals company, and Sinopec International (Hong Kong) Co. Ltd, the wholly owned subsidiary of China Petroleum & Chemical Corporation (Sinopec), signed an agreement that will see Sinopec purchase 25% + 1 share of Krasnoyarsk Synthetic Rubbers Plant JSC (KSRP).

The agreement was signed in presence of Sibur's CEO Dmitry Konov and President of China Petrochemical Corporation and China Petroleum & Chemical Corporation Wang Tianpu. The deal is to be approved by Russian and Chinese regulators.

Earlier the parties signed an agreement on cooperation to create a joint venture, which will produce nitrile rubbers (NBR) on the base of KSRP. Once the joint venture is established, the shareholders will also consider the possibility of increasing the plant’s annual NBR capacity from 42.5 to 56 thousand tonnes.

Sibur and Sinopec are also discussing projects on setting up a joint venture to produce nitrile and polyisoprene rubbers in Shanghai. Future operations’ annual capacity for each type of rubber is currently estimated at the level of 50 thousand tonnes, to be determined more precisely once the feasibility study is completed.

Sibur is the largest integrated gas processing and petrochemicals company in Russia and CIS as well as Central and Eastern Europe as measured by revenues.

Sinopec Corp. is one of the largest scale integrated energy and chemical companies with upstream, midstream and downstream operations. Its refining and ethylene capacity ranks No.2 and No.4 globally. The Company has 30,000 sales and distribution networks of oil products and chemical products, its service stations are now ranked third largest in the world.
MRC

(Reuters) - Swiss speciality chemicals maker Clariant reported a larger-than-expected fall in net income for the third quarter, hit by fresh deterioration in the global economy.

Clariant, whose products put colour into plastics, said earnings fell to 49 million Swiss francs from 81 million a year ago and against an average analysts forecast of 53.6 million.

The chemical industry's dependence on highly cyclical machinery makers, car manufacturers and builders makes it especially vulnerable to economic downturns.

Clariant said that during the third quarter growth in the rest of the world, including in Asia, was unable to offset slackness in Europe where the euro zone debt crisis weighed.

For full-year 2012, Clariant expects flat sales growth in local currencies.It also expects raw material costs to be unchanged this year versus 2011, while exchange rates should remain at the levels of the start of the year.

As MRC wrote earlier, Clariant agreed to acquire the remaining 40 % share of a syngas catalysts joint venture between the Estonia-based holding company Alvigo and Sud-Chemie, which was recently acquired by Clariant. The Sud-Chemie Alvigo Catalysts GmbH (SCAC) venture is a leading producer of syngas catalysts, based in the Ukraine.

MRC

(upstreamonline) -- Strong downstream activity and good production figures in the US Gulf of Mexico sent BP to an increased profit in the third quarter.

The UK supermajor, which has just agreed a huge sale of its Russian joint venture stake to Rosneft, managed to weather the storm of Hurricane Isaac which somewhat negated positives in the upstream sector.

Net profit for the three months to the end of September was USD5.5 billion as against USD5.22 billion a year earlier and a loss of USD1.34 billion in the second quarter.

The rise came against the backdrop of a sizeable fall in revenues from USD97.73 billion a year ago to USD93.12 billion this time around, also down on USD94.89 billion in the second quarter.

Although the depreciation bill rose by some USD550 million, purchases were chopped by over USD5 billion which boosted operating profit.
MRC

(koreatimes) -- Korea's top refiner SK Innovation Co. could benefit from a Chinese state oil firm's decision to scrap a petrochemical plant in eastern China as it stands to enjoy higher margins.

SK Innovation, along with Japan's JX Nippon Oil & Energy Corp., will likely be the biggest beneficiaries of the recently canceled plan to build a new a paraxylene plant in Ningbo.

Thousands of people marched through the city over the weekend to protest against the expansion of a petrochemical factory owned by China Petroleum and Chemical Corp. (Sinopec), the country's biggest oil refiner.

The protesters argued that the plant to produce paraxylene, a flammable, carcinogenic liquid used in polyester, would cause pollution in the city. Sinopec's existing plant in Ninbo already produces 500,000 metric tons of the product each year.

Following the protests the Ningbo government said it will scrap the 55.8 billion yuan (USD8.8 billion) project.

SK Innovation is estimated to have an annual production capacity of 750,000 metric tons of paraxylene under its petrochemical wing SK Global Chemical Co., being Asia's ninth-largest paraxylene producer.

It is likely to jump to the fifth when a 50-50 joint plant with JX Nippon is completed in 2014. The new plant is expected to raise SK Global Chemical's annual production of paraxylene to 1.5 million metric tons.

Sinopec is currently the largest paraxylene producer in Asia with 3.6 million metric tons, followed by JX Nippon with 2.5 million metric tons.MRC

(hydrocarbonprocessing) -- JX Nippon Oil & Energy Corp. is considering shutting down oil refinery operations at its Muroran plant in Hokkaido by the end of March 2014.

JX Nippon will keep the Muroran refinery as a manufacturing plant for petrochemical products and keep its employees through job displacement, the report cited the sources as saying.

The company has already cut its daily output by 400,000 bbl from 2008 and has now decided to cut output by an additional 200,000 bbl by the end of March 2014.

By shutting down the Muroran plant, the company will cut 13% of its group refinery capacity, which is equivalent to a daily output of 180,000 bbl, the report said.

The government is requiring oil wholesalers scale down refinery capacities by the end of fiscal 2013 amid stagnant domestic demand for gasoline due to the increase in the number of electric cars and fuel efficient vehicles as well as declining automobile sales.

The Nippon Oil Corporation, or NOC or Shin-Nisseki is a Japanese petroleum company. Its businesses include the exploration, importation, and refining of crude oil; the manufacture and sale of petroleum products, including olefines(ethylene, propylene) and aromatics.
MRC