YPF, Petronas sign USD550 mln Vaca Muerta shale accord

MOSCOW (MRC) -- YPF SA and Petroliam Nasional Bhd., state-controlled companies from Argentina and Malaysia, signed a USD550 million accord to develop shale oil at the world’s fourth-largest deposit in Vaca Muerta, said Bloomberg.

Miguel Galuccio and Shamsul Azhar Abbas, chief executive officers for YPF and Petronas, respectively, signed a deal to develop a 187-square kilometer area (72 square miles) at Petronas’s Kuala Lumpur headquarters today, the Buenos Aires-based producer said in an e-mailed statement. YPF will invest USD75 million and Petronas $475 million to drill more than 30 wells in three years in southwestern Argentina. Depending on the results the program could be expanded to a five-year USD1 billion investment, YPF said.

"We are in preliminary talks with others," Galuccio said on a videoconference from Kuala Lumpur. "We will keep talking. There is no immediate rush for more joint ventures."

YPF is seeking partners to develop Vaca Muerta, a formation the size of Belgium that contains at least 23 billion barrels of oil. Chevron Corp. (CVX), the third-largest oil company by market value, signed a memorandum of understanding with YPF in August 2012 that 11 months later led to a development accord. Chevron’s initial Vaca Muerta investment in Loma Campana of USD1.24 billion was later expanded to USD16 billion.

As MRC wrote previously, Malaysian state oil and gas company Petronas has pushed back the completion date for its Johor refinery-petrochemical project to 2017 as a final investment decision has been delayed. The company was expected to give the project the green light this year but had to push it back due to political uncertainty during the national elections early this year, industry sources said.

Petronas, short for Petroliam Nasional Berhad, is a Malaysian oil and gas company wholly owned by the Government of Malaysia. The Group is engaged in a wide spectrum of petroleum activities, including upstream exploration and production of oil and gas to downstream oil refining; marketing and distribution of petroleum products; trading; gas processing and liquefaction; gas transmission pipeline network operations; marketing of liquefied natural gas; petrochemical manufacturing and marketing; shipping; automotive engineering; and property investment.
MRC

MOSCOW (MRC) -- BASF has inaugurated its new production plant for concrete admixtures in Nairobi, Kenya, as per the company's press release.

The production site will allow BASF to better meet the increasing demand for construction chemicals of customers in Eastern Africa.

At the site, BASF produces standard and custom-made performance admixtures from the MasterRheobuild and the MasterGlenium product line.

"We are now able to rapidly supply our customers with admixtures for all cement and aggregate types, whether their construction projects are located in the urban areas of Eastern Africa or in more remote sites," said Dick Purchase, head of BASF’s regional construction chemicals business for the Middle East, West Asia, CIS and Africa.

"BASF’s admixtures enable to produce concrete with higher strength, and to increase its workability retention," he added. "This is of special importance in urban areas such as Nairobi, Kenya, or Kampala, Uganda, where transportation of concrete to the construction site may take longer due to high traffic."

Kenya is a particularly strong growing market for construction chemicals in Eastern Africa, according to company officials.

"Growth in emerging markets is an integral component of BASF’s strategy," said Laurent Tainturier, senior vice president of CIS, Middle East and Africa at BASF. “In line with this, BASF’s Africa strategy aims to double sales on the continent by the year 2020.

"The new production facility will strengthen the product portfolio in the region, and will meet the demands for multi-story buildings, long-lasting infrastructural constructions and more energy efficiency in construction techniques."

The new production site in Nairobi is also a further step to strengthen the global network of the Master Builders Solutions brand, according to BASF officials. The solutions offered by the brand will also strongly benefit contractors from other regions doing construction projects in Eastern Africa, as they may already know the product portfolio and technologies.

BASF notes that it has been actively selling construction chemicals to the Eastern African market for more than 25 years. Other production sites in Africa are located in Westonaria, South Africa; Algiers, Algeria; Sadat City, Egypt and Casablanca, Morocco.

As MRC informed previously, in late 2011, BASF announced that it was increasing its presence in the growing African markets. The company also said that it would open a new office in Nairobi, Kenya, to serve customers in East Africa and Sub-Sahara.

BASF is the world’s leading chemical company. Its portfolio ranges from chemicals, plastics, performance products and crop protection products to oil and gas. BASF had sales of about EUR74 billion in 2013 and over 112,000 employees as of the end of the year.
MRC

MOSCOW (MRC) -- Dow Chemical Co. has kicked off processes to sell two of its specialty chemicals subsidiaries that could fetch close to USD2 billion combined, according to people familiar with the matter, part of its effort to divest several billion dollars worth of non-core assets by 2015, said Chicagotribune.

Dow has hired investment bankers including Morgan Stanley to sell its Angus Chemical Co. subsidiary in Buffalo Grove, Ill., as well as AgroFresh Inc., the people said on Wednesday, asking not to be named because the matter is not public.

Those two units are in addition to the epoxy business and some chlorine and derivatives assets that Dow previously said it has earmarked for sale. The move to put additional assets on the block underscore Dow's stated effort to divest less lucrative businesses and return more money to shareholders in the face of increasing investor pressure. Midland, Michigan-based Dow makes everything from insecticides to plastics.

Dow's Angus Chemical Co. is a wholly owned subsidiary that makes additives used in a variety of products including paints, personal care and cosmetics and life science utilities. That business has earnings before interest, taxes depreciation and amortization (EBITDA) of around USD115 million and could be sold for more than 10 times that amount, some of the people said.

Philadelphia-based AgroFresh, another wholly owned Dow subsidiary up for sale, makes products used to enhance the freshness, quality and value of fresh produce. Its flagship product is the SmartFresh Quality System, a freshness protection technology proven to maintain firmness, texture and appearance of fruits during storage and transport, according to its website.

This unit has USD50 million to USD60 million of annual EBITDA and would also likely be sold for more than 10 times that number, the people said. Those businesses, both in the early stage of sale processes, are expected to attract interest from other chemical companies as well as private equity firms, according to the people familiar with the matter.

As MRC informed previously, Dow Chemical, the largest US chemical maker by sales, said in December 2013 it would separate its chlorine-related assets including its epoxy business as the company focuses on higher-margin activities. The chlorine assets account for as much as USD5 billion of annual revenue and include plants at 11 sites employing almost 2,000 people.

The Dow Chemical Company is an American multinational chemical corporation. As of 2007, it is the second-largest chemical manufacturer in the world by revenue (after BASF) and as of February 2009, the third-largest chemical company in the world by market capitalization (after BASF and DuPont). Dow is a large producer of plastics, including polystyrene, polyurethane, polyethylene, polypropylene, and synthetic rubber.
MRC

MOSCOW (MRC) -- Borealis, a leading provider in the fields of polyolefins, base chemicals and fertilizers, has announced that it has completed the acquisition of DuPont Holding Netherland B.V. shares of Speciality Polymers Antwerp N.V., as per the company's press release.

Previously, Speciality Polymers Antwerp N.V., located in Zwijndrecht (Antwerp, Belgium) was a joint venture between DuPont Holding Netherlands B.V. (67%), Borealis Polymers N.V. and Borealis Kallo N.V. (together 33%).

"The acquisition of the full ownership of Speciality Polymers Antwerp is in line with our strategy to grow our polyolefin business in specific market areas", says Mark Garrett, Borealis Chief Executive. "Acrylate copolymers, which are part of a broader portfolio of specialty polymers produced at Speciality Polymers Antwerp, are an important building block for our value-added products sold into our core Energy & Infrastructure market."

Under the new arrangement, DuPont will continue to serve the market with ethylene vinyl acetate (EVA) and acrylate copolymers and Borealis will supply DuPont with ethylene vinyl acetate (EVA) and acrylate copolymers from the Specialty Polymers Antwerp facility.

Borealis intends to fully integrate the new site and its employees into the Borealis organisation. The company will start the full integration of the site and its activities, a process in which safety and business continuity will be key.

As MRC informed earlier, last summer, Borealis and Borouge announced the dedicated roll-out of the technology platform Borlink in Russia, according to the company's press release. Borlink was introduced by Borealis and Borouge as a technology platform offering a complete global package of power cable compounds and expertise serving applications for medium and high voltage (MV, HV), including extra high voltage (EHV) and high voltage direct current (HVDC).

DuPont is an American chemical company that was founded in July, 1802. The company manufactures a wide range of chemical products, leading extensive innovative research in this field. The company is the inventor of many unique plastics and other materials, including neoprene, nylon, Teflon, Kevlar, Mylar, Tyvek, etc. DuPont was the developer and main producer of Freon used in the production of refrigeration equipment.

Vienna-based Borealis is a leading producer of polyolefins, base chemicals and fertilizers. The firm posted sales of more than USD10 billion in 2013. Borealis is majority-owned by state-owned International Petroleum Investment Co. of Abu Dhabi. IPIC also owns North American ethylene and polyethylene producer Nova Chemicals and Middle Eastern petrochemicals firm Borouge.
MRC

MOSCOW (MRC) - Imports of polyvinyl chloride (PVC) in Kazakhstan increased to 39,700 tonnes in the first seven months of this year, up 76% compared with the same time a year earlier, according to MRC analysts.
July imports of unmixed PVC in Kazakhstan rose to 8,700 tonnes, compared with 6,000 tonnes in June. Total imports of PVC in the country grew to 39,700 tonnes in January - July 2014, compared with 22,500 tonnes year on year.

Such a significant increase in PVC imports in Kazakhstan resulted from a further re-import of the polymer in Russia. The main suppliers of PVC in the local market were producers from China, with their share more than 97% from the total PVC imports into the country.

MRC