Technip inks Petrobras pipes deal

MOSCOW (MRC) -- Petrobras has handed France’s Technip the contract to build flexible pipes for a key pre-salt field in the Santos basin, said Upstreamonline.

The engineering giant will construct and deliver up to 250 kilometres of pipes for use on the Iracema Sul field, formerly known as Cernambi Sul.

The flexible pipes will link up to the Cidade de Mangaratiba floating production, storage and offloading unit. The field lies in water depths of up to 250 metres. Technip’s operating center in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil will perform the engineering and project management.

As MRC wrote before, Argentina orders shutdown of local Petrobras' refinery. The facility, located in Argentina's Buenos Aires province was closed as of 6 am on Friday for an indefinite period of time as its effluents discharge certificates are said to be overdue since 2003, while the environmental permits have expired four years ago.

Petroleo Brasileiro S.A. or Petrobras is a semi-public Brazilian multinational energy corporation headquartered in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil. It is the largest company in the Southern Hemisphere by market capitalization and the largest in Latin America measured by 2011 revenues.
MRC

MOSCOW (MRC) -- Lanxess, the German specialty chemicals company, will increase its prices worldwide for rubber chemicals supplied by the Rubber Chemicals business unit effective July 1, 2013, reported the company in its press-release.

The increases are required to offset higher production costs.

The price increases will impact the Vulkanox (antidegradant) and Vulkacit (accelerator) product groups, and will range between 0.05 Euro/kg and 0.20 Euro/kg (0.10 USD and 0.30 US$) depending on the product and region.

The rubber chemicals Vulkanox and Vulkacit are primarily used in the manufacture of rubber products such as tires, hoses and profiles and in the production of drive elements.

As MRC wrote previously, Perlon-Monofil GmbH, belongs to the High Performance Materials (HPM) business unit of specialty chemicals group Lanxess, will raise its prices worldwide for synthetic monofilaments by a minimum of 5% depending on the field of application and grade from July 1, 2013. It manufactures an extensive range of polyamide and polyester monofilament products for a wide variety of applications, and markets them worldwide under the brand names Perlon, Atlas and Bayco.

Lanxess is a leading specialty chemicals company with sales of EUR 9.1 billion in 2012 and roughly 17,400 employees in 31 countries. The company is currently represented at 50 production sites worldwide. The core business of LANXESS is the development, manufacturing and marketing of plastics, rubber, intermediates and specialty chemicals. LANXESS posted lower earnings in the first quarter of 2013 as expected due to a weak market environment, particularly in the tire and automotive industries. First-quarter sales were down by 12% year-on-year to EUR 2.1 billion, mainly due to lower volumes and fallen selling prices.
MRC

MOSCOW (MRC) -- In Egypt, the local PP producer EPPC has been absent from the market for over two months now, said Apic-online.

The producer, who usually makes monthly price announcements, stopped offering to the market at the end of March, pointing to the higher EGP/USD parity issues and lack of dollar reserves inside the country, which led many Egyptian players to turn to the black market to meet their dollar needs at much higher rates than the officially announced ones by the country’s banks, as their motives behind their decision.

Previously a source from the producer had cited that it would have been difficult to judge a fair price amidst the ongoing financial problems in the country in order to justify their withdrawal from the market. When June was nearing, some players were claiming that the producer was to return to the market although this information was not confirmed by the producer. Yet, in June, the expectancies about EPPC’s return did not materialize. A converter commented, "Most players were preparing to cut their import purchases in order to see EPPC’s new prices but it seems like June will be the third month that EPPC will not offer to the market."

Regional producers were said to hold limited quantities while some of them were already reported to be sold out of their restricted quantities.

Meanwhile, the nearby market of Turkey has also lacked Egyptian raffia offers since the end of April although some Egyptian fibre offers have recently started to be reported in that market.

As MRC wrote before, in a move to preserve its public interest, Egypt has lifted anti-dumping fees on polypropylene (PP) imports from Saudi Arabia after a prior investigation of the matter. The investigation on protective measures and anti-dumping fees imposed on Saudi imports due to claims that they are damaging its industry has been conducting by Egyptl. The results of the investigation showed that the damage was caused by other factors and that the measures against Saudi imports were not in interest of the Egyptian public.
MRC

MOSCOW (MRC) -- Imports of suspension PVC (PVC-S) to Ukraine rose by 6% in May to 9,800 tonnes, according to MRC DataScope.

PVC imports increased to 48,000 tonnes over the first five months of 2013.

The outage at Karpatneftekhim (Lukoil group), the Ukrainian PVC producer, continues to strengthen dependence of the Ukrainian market from import shipments.

PVC-S imports from the US nearly double in May. The total imports of North American PVC to the Ukrainian market amounted to about 4,200 tonnes, while in April this index made 2,200 tonnes. Over five months of 2013, the overall supply volumes of North American PVC to Ukraine totalled 23,400 tonnes, up by 4.5 times year-on-year.

European producers limited their export quotas in May and, as a result, the supply of resin to the Ukrainian market dropped by 13% from April to 5,500 tonnes. Some Ukrainian companies said that they faced limited export PVC quotas from European producers, mainly caused by flooding (the Czech producer Spolana temporarily suspended production).

PVC-S imports to Ukraine over the first five months of the year totalled about 48,000 tonnes, an increase of 90% year-on-year. The main reason for the significant growth in PVC-S imports is the long outage at Karpatneftekhim. PVC producers from the United States offset the shortage of the domestic material.

As MRC analysts reported previously, Karpatneftekhim had stopped its PVC production in the first decade of September 2012. The plant's annual production capacity amounts to 300,000 tonnes (Vinnolit is the licensor of the production technology). In mid-April 2013, the Ukrainian Government and Lukoil signed a memorandum of understanding for providing a number of benefits for the resumption of Karpatneftekhim production, which also includes raising the import duty to 6.5% (the decision to change the duty will be taken in October). According to the Government's statement, the company will resume operations at the plant on 2 August, 2013.

MRC

MOSCOW (MRC) -- Mogilevkhimvolokno, the Belarusian producer of PET granulate, raised its June prices for the domestic market, according to MRC Price report.

Mogilevkhimvolokno's price offers for buyers in the domestic market increased by BRb6.0m/tonne from May. According to local buyers, the new price was announced at BRb15.45m/tonne, FCA Mogilev, excluding VAT.

The plant has raised its price, despite an overall fall in quotations in Europe and drop in prices for Asian imported material. Also, the company has increased its prices for export June shipments to Russia and Ukraine.

Mogilevkhimvolokno is the only PET producer in Belarus. As reported previously, the company's revenues increased by 25% compared with 2011 to Brb3.573 trillion (USD410,7 mln).
MRC