TOTAL is charged for illegal payments to Iranian official

MOSCOW (MRC) -- The Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) has charged France-based oil and gas company Total S.A. with violating the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act (FCPA) by paying USD60 million in bribes to intermediaries of an Iranian government official who then exercised his influence to help the company obtain valuable contracts to develop significant oil and gas fields in Iran, according to The Wall Street Journal.

The SEC alleges that Total made more than USD150 million in profits through the bribery scheme. Total attempted to cover up the true nature of the illegal payments by entering into sham consulting agreements with intermediaries of the Iranian official and mischaracterizing the bribes in its books and records as legitimate "business development expenses" related to the consulting agreements. Total had inadequate systems to properly review the consulting agreements and lacked sufficient internal controls to comply with federal laws prohibiting bribery.

Total, whose securities are publicly traded on the New York Stock Exchange, agreed to pay more than USD398 million to settle the SEC's charges and a parallel criminal matter announced recently by the U.S. Department of Justice.

The SEC's order requires Total to pay disgorgement of USD153 million in illicit profits and retain an independent compliance consultant to review and report on Total's compliance with the FCPA.

In the parallel criminal proceedings, Total agreed to pay a USD245.2 million penalty as part of a deferred prosecution agreement. Total also was charged today by the prosecutor of Paris (Francois Molins, Procureur de la Republique) of the Tribunal de Grande Instance de Paris for violations of French laws.

We remind that, as MRC reported earlier, French oil giant Total SA has recently approved a EUR1 billion (USD1.29 billion) project to modernize its Antwerp refining and petrochemical platform. As part of the modernization process, the company will shut down its oldest cracker and polyethylene lines at Antwerp platform.

Total S.A. is a French multinational oil and gas company and one of the six "Supermajor" oil companies in the world. Its businesses cover the entire oil and gas chain, from crude oil and natural gas exploration and production to power generation, transportation, refining, petroleum product marketing, and international crude oil and product trading. Total is also a large-scale chemicals manufacturer.
MRC

MOSCOW (MRC) -- ExxonMobil said on Thursday it has started ethylene production at a new chemical unit in Singapore after expansion, said Reuters.

With the start-up of the steam cracker, the company will increase production at other petrochemical units in the Singapore complex over the next few weeks, it said in an emailed statement. Ethylene is a feedstock for producing polymers used in plastics production.

ExxonMobil is set to become the largest petrochemicals company operating in Singapore. The company already has a 605,000bpd refinery operating on Jurong Island, as well as an existing petrochemical plant (completed in 2001, at a cost of USD2bn), which has the capacity to produce 800,000t per year of ethylene and has downstream plants to produce polyethylene and polypropylene.

The new plant is a multibillion dollar project (USD5bn-6bn) that broke ground in November 2007 (the final investment decision was made in September 2007) and was scheduled to be completed by early 2011. However, the project was delayed due to its scale and complexity.

The new plant was finally commissioned in December 2012 and the new petrochemical complex is now fully integrated with the existing refinery.

The combination of the two petrochemical plants will make Singapore one of the largest chemical-producing hubs in the world.

The new complex has a one million tonnes per year ethylene steam cracker, two 650,000t per year polyethylene units, a 450,000t per year polypropylene unit and a 300,000t per year speciality elastomers unit.

ExxonMobil is the largest non-government owned company in the energy industry and produces about 3 percent of the world's oil and about 2% of the world's energy.
MRC

MOSCOW (MRC) -- To meet the growing fuel demand in the country that is expected to be in the vicinity of 50 million tonnes by 2020, state-owned Hindustan Petroleum Corpn Ltd (HPCL) will revive its 50,000 crore stalled refinery-cum-petrochemicals project near Visakhapatnam in Andhra Pradesh, said Newindianexpress.

The 15-million tonne a year refinery and a mega petrochem plant is being built about 70 km away from the company’s existing Vizag refinery, HPCL Chairman and Managing Director S Roy Choudhury told reporters here on Wednesday. The company is looking for 3,000 acres of land in Andhra Pradesh to set up the proposed project.

The oil marketing company has asked energy giants including Total SA of France and British petroleum major BP Plc to join in to revive the stalled petrochemical project, Roy Choudhury said.

Earlier in 2009, a consortium led by HPCL, which also included steel billionaire LN Mittal’s Group, Total of France, state-owned Oil India and GAIL, had in 2009 put the project on hold as petrochemical demand then was seen as too weak to justify the investment.

HPCL has also approached Oil India Limited, Indian Oil Corp (IOC) and ONGC to join the venture as partners.

HPCL already owns a 6.5 million tonnes refinery at Mumbai and a 8.3 million tonne unit at Vizag. While the Vizag plant is being expanded to 15 million tonnes HPCL is also setting up a 9 million tonnes refinery at Barmer in Rajasthan at an estimated cost of 37, 320 crore.

It had in 2007-08 planned the only-for-exports refinery to target demand in South East Asia and the Middle East.

The five-way alliance of HPCL, oil explorer OIL, gas utility firm GAIL India and Mittal Investment SARL and Total had in October 2007 signed a MoU to look at the feasibility of setting up the Vizag project.

Total did pre-feasibility for the refinery project and demand studies while GAIL was mandated to study the petrochemical unit. But the project was in 2010 put on hold before equity structure could be decided.

MRC

MOSCOW (MRC) -- A. Schulman Inc. said that as a result of continued tough economic conditions in Europe, it plans to further restructure its operations there, said Cnbc.

The Akron, Ohio-based supplier of plastic compounds and resins didn't specifically say what it would do to reduce costs, but did say the moves would include jobs cuts. The actions are expected to generate about USD4 million in annual run rate savings.

Over the past three years, A. Schulman's European restructuring actions have resulted in more than USD6 million in annual run rate savings.

A. Schulman also said that it plans to sell its Australian rotational compounding business. The company plans to hire a financial advisor to help with the process and expects to complete a sale within six to 12 months. The business' fiscal 2012 revenue totaled about USD25 million.

A. Schulman said the move will allow its Asia Pacific team to focus on profitable growth markets and look for further acquisitions in the region.

In early March A. Schulman Inc. (SHLM) made public offer to buy Ferro Corp. for about USD563 million in cash and stock as the specialty chemicals company continues to pursue a deal with its smaller peer, which has rejected the deal.

A. Schulman is a global plastics supplier, headquartered in Akron, Ohio, and a leading international supplier of high-performance plastic compounds and resins, which are used as raw materials in a variety of markets. A. Schulman has 33 manufacturing facilities globally. It reported net sales of USD2.2 billion for the fiscal year ended August 31, 2011.
MRC

MOSCOW (MRC) -- In April, the output of caustic soda by Russian plants fell by 5% year on year, according to MRC ScanPlast.

Thus, last month' total production of caustic soda in Russia amounted to 84,400 tonnes. In April 2012, this index equalled 89,770 tonnes.

The decline in caustic soda production in April was registered at seven plants. Sibur-Neftekhim accounted for the largest decrease in tonnage terms, which amounted to about 4,000 tonnes. More information about the structure of domestic production and capacity utilization can be found in MRC ScanPlast.

Overall, in January-April 2013, Russian plants produced 362,000 tonnes of caustic soda, down 1% year on year. The total production volumes of caustic soda in Russia for the first four months of 2012 amounted to 366,000 tonnes.
MRC