Pemex explosion caused by methane gas accumulation

MOSCOW (MRC) -- An accumulation of gas caused the blast at the headquarters of Mexican state oil monopoly Pemex, killing at least 37 people, as per The Guardian.

According to the preliminary results of the investigation, the gas that exploded was possibly methane, said Mexican Attorney General Jesus Murillo said late Monday. Manmade explosives ruled out as cause of blast.

Investigators are still working to determine where the gas came from, and whether or not there was anyone to blame.

As MRC informed previously, Mexican officials privately said there was no early indication of sabotage in the blast. There were a number of outages at the company's petrochemical complex last year, which were caused by technical problems. However, Pemex said that the explosion at the company's headquarters did not affect the operations at its plants.

Pemex, Mexican Petroleum, is a Mexican state-owned petroleum company. Pemex has a total asset worth of USD415.75 billion, and is the world's second largest non-publicly listed company by total market value, and Latin America's second largest enterprise by annual revenue as of 2009. Company produces such polymers, as polyethylene (PE), polypropylene (PP), polystyrene (PS).
MRC

MOSCOW (MRC) -- SIBUR's CEO Dmitry Konov and President of Integrated Energy Systems Boris Vainzikher signed a Strategic Memorandum to boost energy efficiency of SIBUR's petrochemicals production, according to the company's press release.

The Memorandum outlines a comprehensive action plan aimed at more efficient power supplies to SIBUR's production facilities from IES Holding's power plants located near Perm, Nizhny Novgorod, Samara, and in other Russian regions.

In February, the companies plan to sign a long-term contract that will see IES's TGC-6 deliver heat to RusVinyl, a joint venture PVC plant of SIBUR and SolVin under construction. As tentatively agreed by the parties, TGC-6's Novogorkovskaya CHPP is to provide RusVinyl with an annual 500,000 Gcal of steam and hot water and 1.5 mt of desalinated water over the next ten years.

As MRC reported earlier, SIBUR launched a sales office in Ekaterinburg to facilitate distribution of its basic polymers across the Urals Federal District. The representative office will market SIBUR's polyethylene (PE) and polypropylene (PP) both to large industrial consumers and SME customers.

IES Holding (Integrated Energy Systems) is Russia's largest private heat and power generation and supply company. The key areas of its business include: power generation, energy trading, and retail distribution of heat and power.

SIBUR owns and operates Russia’s largest gas processing business in terms of associated petroleum gas processing volumes, according to IHS CERA and is a leader in the Russian petrochemicals industry. The Group has two operating and reportable segments: feedstock and energy, and petrochemicals. The Group sells these energy products on the Russian and international markets and uses some of them as feedstock for its petrochemicals segment, which processes them into various petrochemicals, including basic polymers, synthetic rubbers, plastics and products of organic synthesis, as well as intermediates and other chemicals.

RusVinyl is a joint venture created by Russian and Belgian partners to construct and operate a PVC and caustic soda production facility near Kstovo in the Nizhny Novgorod Region. The JV partners are SIBUR and Belgium's SolVin, a leading European producer of PVC. SolVin is a joint venture of Solvay (75%), an international chemical and pharmaceutical group, and Germany's BASF (25%). The new facility will have an annual production capacity of 330,000 tonnes of PVC and 235,000 tonnes of caustic soda. Now, the project (including designing, equipment and supplies procurement, and construction) is over 70% completed.
MRC

MOSCOW (MRC) -- Sabic, one of the largest petrochemical producers in the world, has announced that a labor strike at one of its plants in Europe resulted in a decline in its output, according to The National.

The decrease in production at the Sabic Europe Chemicals plant located in the Dutch city of Geleen began January 31 due to a proactive measure taken by the union workforce as a consequence of no finalized agreement regarding work conditions, Sabic said in a statement posted on the Saudi bourse website.

"Sabic is keen on protecting its investments, and considers all other options available; it is not possible to determine the financial effect or the effect on production capacity, at this time," it added.

The Saudi giant petrochemicals maker has announced fourth quarter net profits of 5.83 billion riyals (USD1.55 bln), an 11.3% increase compared to 2011, as MRC informed earlier. Despite the quartely increase, the company said 2012 net income had dropped by 15.5% to 24.72 billion riyals (USD6.59 billion) from 29.24 billion riyals the year before.

Sabic Europe Petrochemicals, headquartered in Sittard, focuses on polyolefins production. It operates a network of sales offices and three production sites located in Geleen, in the UK's Teesside, and in Germany's Gelsenkirchen, according to the statement. In Geleen, Sabic has two naphtha crackers and several polymerisation plants to produce polyethylene (PE) and polypropylene (PP). Geleen produces 1.25 million tpa of ethylene, 725,000 tpa of propylene, 940,000 tpa of polyethylene, and 620,000 tpa of polypropylene.
MRC

MOSCOW (MRC) -- The activity in China's polypropylene (PP) and polyethylene (PE) markets has started to slow down as the country is preparing to celebrate the Chinese New Year this weekend, said Apic-online.

Players are expected to be away from the market until February 18 while many have already been sidelined. However, PP and PE markets retain their strength ahead of the holiday on the heels of soaring energy and feedstock costs.

Both import and domestic markets have gained ground this week. Several overseas producers are seeking price hikes and are offering close to the high end of the overall market ranges, while offers from traders are forming the low end of the ranges.

A Shanghai based trader offering various PE cargoes on import basis said, "Some traders have stopped offering this week while others are firm at their new levels supported by the producers’ adamant stance. They are confident about the market outlook after the holidays even though they cannot conclude deals now."

A distributor based in Shantou commented, "PP offers from domestic producers are stable to firmer this week. However, we did not make any changes on our own prices since most buyers have already left the market for the holidays and interest is quite thin these days."

A distributor in Tianjin also affirmed that local PE prices tracked a stable to slightly firmer trend this week; however, he was concerned as he thought the current market level was overheated. "Demand is not strong enough to support any price hikes. Some of our customers who used to buy 500-600 tons of materials before the holidays bought only around 100 tons this year. Therefore, I don’t think further price increases will be achievable after players resume their work in the second half of February" the distributor stated.

As MRC wrote earlier, Despite the low demand in January, prices of polypropylene (PP) in the Russian market have not declined. Some Russian producers have already announced that in February they intended to keep the January prices, according to a ICIS-MRC Price Report.

MRC

MOSCOW (ICIS-MRC) -- On Monday, negotiations on European polypropylene (PP) prices for the CIS markets began. Some European producers reported the need to increase PP prices by EUR30/tonne, according to ICIS-MRC Price report.

The contract price of propylene in Europe for February was agreed by EUR10/tonne higher than the January level. Negotiations on the prices of European polypropylene for February for the CIS markets started earlier this week. Some European producers announced that they raised export prices by EUR30/tonne, converserly, other producers reduces their prices.

The January level of export prices of European homopolymer of propylene (PP-homo) for the CIS countries has been agreed in the range of EUR1,210-1,250/tonne, FCA. In February, on the increase of the contract price of propylene, some producers reported the necessity to further raise PP prices. This week, price offers for homopolymer of propylene for this month were voiced in the range EUR1,240-1,280/tonne, FCA, by some European makers.

Some companies said that, on the contrary, they had managed to reduce prices of European polypropylene by EUR10-20/tonne. Price offers of European homopolymer of propylene for February have been discussed in the range of EUR1,200-1,230/tonne, FCA.
MRC