PET production in Russia dropped by 7% in January-October 2013

MOSCOW (MRC) -- Production of PET chips at Russian plants dropped in January-October 2013 by 7% year on year and totalled 354,000 tonnes, according to MRC ScanPlast.

A sharp drop in production has been registered since early August. It was caused by a series of force majeures and shutdowns for scheduled maintenance at Russian polyethylene terephthalate (PET) plants.

October was no exception. October outpute of PET fell by 43% year on year and totalled 21,900 tonnes. Such low levels of production in October were caused by several factors. Firstly, Senege shut down its production because of a failure in the first week of October. Secondly, Bashkir Polief resumed operations only in the second half of the month. Thirdly, SIBUR-PETF has reduced significantly its capacity utilisation in October.

November PET production in Russia will remain low this year and will not reach PET output of November 2012. Kaliningrad plant Alco-Naphtha shut down its production for a turnaround on 11 November. The plant remained idle for almost the whole month, intending to restart production in late November. In its turn, Senege did not finish maintenance works in October. The plant did not produce PET chips for almost the whole of November, which will affect the country's overall output of PET.

This Autumn long outages will allow market players to reduce their stocks. Seasonal stronger demand is expected in the spot market in early December because of preparations for the New Year holidays and a lack of available quantities in the market.

MRC

MOSCOW (MRC) - Consumption of polycarbonate in Russia increased by 8% to 82,000 tonnes in the first ten months in 2013 compared to the same period in 2012, according to a MRC ScanPlast.

The main consumption sector of PC-granulate in Russia continued to be building (about 16%) and the production of electrical appliances and lighting engineering (about 18%).
Demand for injection moulding polycarbonate for the production of electrical appliances has improved. The leaders in the imports of injection moulding polycarbonate were Sabic, Bayer and Samsung.

Russian market of PC-granulate continued to be dependant on imports, because Russian producers are unable to meet the growing demand for quality feedstock from converters. Russia's imports of PC-granulate exceeded 39,000 tonnes in the first ten months of the year, which was almost half of the total consumption.

Russia's exports totalled almost 14,000 tonnes in the firts ten months of the year. Total PC production in Russia was about 56,000 tonnes in the first ten months of the year.

MRC

MOSCOW (MRC) -- The Vietnamese government will thoroughly evaluate state-owned Thai PTT's proposed mega-refinery and tightly manage the development of other refinery and petrochemical projects in the country, Prime Minister Nguyen Tan Dung told the National Assembly, reported Plastemart.

The statement was in response to a lawmaker's concern that regional governments appeared to be on a "campaign" to build too many projects.

PTT expects to complete a feasibility study of the proposed 660,000 bpd project in the central province of Binh Dinh in April.

Dung said most of the proposals for new Vietnamese refineries have been approved in principle and were included in the country's 2020-25 development plan for the refining and petrochemical sector, which was released in 2011.

However, he has asked the municipal government of the southern Can Tho City to consider revoking the investment license of the much-delayed 2 mln tpa Can Tho project. The sponsors, Vietnam's Vien Dong Investment and Trade Corp., are financially unable to move the project forward, the prime minister said.

Dung said Vietnam's sole 130,000 bpd Dung Quat refinery in the central province of Quang Ngai has shown its effectiveness. As MRC wrote previously, Russia's Gazprom Neft plans to acquire a 49% share in state-owned PetroVietnam's Binh Son Refining and Petrochemical, which controls and manages the Dung Quat refinery. The two parties are currently in price negotiations.
MRC

MOSCOW (MRC) -- The board of directors of Westlake Chemical Corporation declared on Friday, November 22, 2013, a dividend of 22.5 cents per share. The dividend will be payable on December 20, 2013, to stockholders of record on December 6, 2013, said MarketWatch.

This is the 37(th) successive quarterly dividend that Westlake has declared since completing its initial public offering in August 2004.

As MRC wrote before, Westlake Chemical has agreed to acquire the PVC pipe and fittings unit of Compagnie de Saint-Gobain SA's CertainTeed Corp. for USD175 million. CertainTeed's pipe and foundation group produces PVC pipe and fittings for municipalities, water wells, mining, agriculture and irrigation.

Westlake Chemical Corporation is a manufacturer and supplier of petrochemicals, polymers and building products with headquarters in Houston, Texas. The company's range of products includes: ethylene, polyethylene, styrene, propylene, caustic, VCM, PVC resin and PVC building products including pipe and specialty components, windows and fence.
MRC

MOSCOW (MRC) -- Formosa Plastics is seeking United States permits for a USD2 billion expansion of its Texas operations as cheaper natural gas prices make US production more competitive, said Hydrocarbonprocessing.

The company asked federal and state environmental regulators to approve plans for an ethane cracker unit and downstream derivatives, Formosa Plastics Vice Chairman Susan Wang said in an interview. She is visiting the United States as part of a business delegation led by former Taiwan Vice President Vincent Siew.

The investment is bigger than was previously planned by Formosa Plastics as of February 2012, when it said it would spend USD1.7 billion to build two factories and a polyethylene plastics plant in Texas.

One of the business delegation’s key aims is shoring up United States support for Taiwan’s participation in the proposed Trans-Pacific Partnership, a regional trade deal the will cover the United States and 11 other nations, an area with about USD28 trillion in combined annual economic output. Taiwan is seeking to join the talks, which don’t include China.

Formosa Plastics’s Wang said the Taipei-based company expects to receive the environmental permits for an expansion at its Point Comfort facility, about 200 km southwest of Houston, sometime within the next year. Construction can begin immediately thereafter, she said.

Environmental regulations in the United States are "quite reasonable," Wang said. The hurdles in Texas are a shortage of skilled labor, due to the number of competing facilities that need workers, and the relatively high cost of shipping products by rail in the United States, she said.

In the US, the group owns petrochemical plants, plastic processing facilities and natural gas wells. Last year, it applied to boost capacity in two Texas chemical plants.


Wang said Formosa Plastics is "at a crossroads" in determining whether to build or invest in an ethylene plant in China. Taiwan last month lifted the ban on investing in Chinese ethylene plants, also known as “naphtha crackers” for the use of the petroleum distillate naphtha. China has yet to ease its rules on ethylene investments across the Taiwan Strait.

Formosa Petrochemical is involved primarily in the business of refining crude oil, selling refined petroleum products and producing and selling olefins (including ethylene, propylene, butadiene and BTX) from its naphtha cracking operations. Formosa Petrochemical is also the largest olefins producer in Taiwan and its olefins products are mostly sold to companies within the Formosa Group. Among the company"s chemical products are paraxylene (PX), phenyl ethylene, acetone and pure terephthalic acid (PTA). The company"s plastic products include acrylonitrile butadiene styrene (ABS) resins, polystyrene (PS), polypropylene (PP) and panlite (PC).
MRC