Cracker of KPIC to undergo maintenance in 2014

(apic-online) -- Korea Petrochemical Industry Company (KPIC) is likely to shut operations at its cracker.

Located at Ulsan in South Korea, the cracker has ethylene production capacity of 470,000 mt/year and propylene production capacity of 230,000 mt/year.

The cracker will be taken off-stream for a maintenance turnaround in 2014 and will remain shut for around one month. The cracker is currently operating at 90% production capacity rates, according to a Polymerupdate source in South Korea.

KPIC is South Korean largest producer of HDPE with a capacity of 530,000 mt/year, accounting for 24% of the country's total production capacity. The company also has the capacity to produce 470,000 mt/year of ethylene and 350,000 mt/year of polypropylene.

MRC

(toyo-eng) -- Toyo is slated to provide engineering, procurement, construction and commissioning with a turnkey contract for expanding the plant's life by another 20 years. Toyo says it will actively expand business in Malaysia, where investments in large refinery/petrochemicals complexes are expected to be active.

Japan-based Toyo Engineering has been awarded a contract by Malaysia's Petronas for the rejuvenation and revamp project of the No. 4 gas processing plant located in Kerteh, Terengganu, the firms said on Tuesday.

The plant will have a capacity of 250 million cubic feet/day, according to project officials.

Toyo is slated to provide engineering, procurement, construction and commissioning with a turnkey contract for expanding the plant's life by another 20 years.

Toyo cited an extensive track record for Petronas projects at Kerteh, including basic design work for prior revamp projects of gas processing plants No. 1 and No. 2.

The company says it is seeking to actively expand business in Malaysia, where investments in large oil refinery and petrochemicals complexes are expected to be active from now on.

MRC

(seekingalpha) -- PetroLogistics (PDH) just announced a unexpected shut down of production Monday, December 17th to fix a damaged compressor. Repairs are expected to take about 3 weeks and cost around USD2M. This all based on the press release that came out after the close on Tuesday the 18th.

Just looking at the recent outage the impact should be relatively small. Looking at inventory the company had roughly 10 days of inventory on the balance sheet at the close of the September quarter. If they managed to build a little inventory during the current quarter it's possible that they will satisfy demands from that.

On a purely fundamental basis the near-term hit to the stock should not be catastrophic. The shut down can reduce the quarterly dividend by 10-12% and the annual payout by 2-3%. It would argue for a 5% or so decline in share price to USD12.50.

PetroLogistics LP owns and operates the world’s largest propane dehydrogenation plant, based on production capacity, producing both chemical and polymer grade propylene, at its facility located on the Houston Ship Channel.

MRC

(styrolution) -- Styrolution is restructuring its regional distributor network for its Specialties portfolio in Europe, the Middle East and Africa (EMEA). The reorganization of its distribution channels in the region comes just over a year after the company made its debut on the market as the largest global supplier of styrenics, with leading positions in styrene monomer, styrenic Specialties, polystyrene and acrylonitrile butadiene styrene (ABS).

With this move, Styrolution aims to better serve customers, extend its geographical reach and strengthen its leading market position in EMEA.

Styrolution will consolidate distributor networks for its Specialty products in EMEA inherited from its three heritage companies. At the same time, it will align these networks with its Specialty portfolio business model.

The company has selected partners based upon their ability to best serve customers with regards to technical, industry and market segment expertise, service and logistics capabilities, and geographical competencies.

The streamlined distributor landscape will enable Styrolution to dedicate additional resources to support partners in addressing customer needs through improved transfer of product knowledge, supply chain optimization and market-driven pricing models.

Styrolution is a global styrenics supplier and is headquartered in Germany. As a joint venture between BASF (50%) and INEOS (50%), Styrolution combines the key styrenics assets of the two chemical companies.

The company provides styrenics applications for many everyday products across a broad range of industries, including automotive, electrical/electronics, building and construction, household appliances, toys/sports/leisure, packaging.
MRC

MOSCOW (MRC) -- By the end of the year, the total import volumes of PET to Russia will have dropped below the lowest level of the crisis year of 2009 and will exceed 160,000 tonnes, as per preliminary estimates stated in MRC DataScope.

In January-November, the total import volume of PET fell by 46% (the drop was about 120,000 tonnes in absolute terms) year-on-year and made 141,500 tonnes. We remind that over the past ten years, the minimal import indices were registered in the crisis year of 2009. Over eleven months of the said year, import of PET by Russian companies did not exceed 193,000 tonnes. This year, domestic companies break all antirecords. According to preliminary estimates, the total import in 2012 will not exceed 160,000 tonnes.

There were also changes in the structure of import supplies. For the first time since 2008, in January-November 2012, total imports of Chinese PET exceeded supply volumes from South Korea. This year, this tendency was based on a price policy of Chinese producers. To maintain their sales volumes in the declining market, Chinese makers were given a price discount (sometimes, over USD50/tonne) compared to other Asian PET granulate makers.

At the beginning of the year Russian PET producers announced their plans to displace imports. Loyal contract prices of Russian PET allowed converters to reduce purchases of the material in foreign markets. We remind that total production capacities of domestic PET makers (540,000 tpa) allow to meet all the needs of the country’s domestic market. In the future, expansion at Bashkir Polief, scheduled for start up by late 2013, will also contribute to substitution of imports.

At the same time some Russian importers report that they are not going to fully refuse from Asian granulate. The reason for such a decision is the desire to diversify shipments as well as the possibility to get deferred payment over 90 days, which allows not to freeze assets.

MRC