Ineos acquires majority interest in Shale Gas licence in Scotland from Reach Coal Seam Gas

MOSCOW (MRC) -- Ineos Upstream Limited has signed an agreement with Reach Coal Seam Gas Limited (Reach CSG) to acquire an 80% interest in Petroleum Exploration and Development Licence (PEDL) 162, in the Midland Valley of Scotland, reported the company on its site.

This licence area of 400 km2 is next to PEDL 133, in which Ineos already owns a 51% stake of the shale layer. As part of the deal, Ineos will be the operator of the licence, and will fund the initial appraisal activity (consisting of 2 vertical science wells and 100 km2 of 3D seismic).

The deal is subject to relevant regulatory approvals, and is expected to complete within the next few weeks.

The British Geological Survey (BGS) has identified significant shale gas and oil resources in this area via the recent Midland Valley of Scotland report. The key objective of the first phase of appraisal is to determine whether these resources can be economically extracted.

'Ineos Upstream’ is Ineos’ new oil and gas exploration and production business. The Business made its first move into the shale exploration on 18 August with the purchase of a share of the shale section of PEDL 133. The licence covers 329 square kilometres of the Midland Valley of Scotland, which includes Ineos’ Grangemouth refining and petrochemical complex and the surrounding area.

Ineos Upstream CEO, Gary Haywood said, "I am delighted to have concluded this deal in Scotland, which is a very good fit with our existing licence interest in the adjoining PEDL 133. We are keen to move quickly to evaluate the potential of this resource, and determine if we can economically produce gas from this area. If we can, it will provide a local source of competitive energy and raw materials to support manufacturing jobs in Scotland. Our recent commitment to share the benefits of the gas production with the landowners and the community will also bring significant local benefits."

As MRC wrote previously, Ineos has recently announced plans to give 6% of its shale gas revenues to homeowners, landowners & communities who live above its Shale gas operations. Ineos anticipates being a major player in the shale gas industry and believes it will give away over GBP2.5 billion over the life of its business.

Ineos Group Limited is a privately owned multinational chemicals company consisting of 15 standalone business units, headquartered in Rolle, Switzerland and with its registered office in Lyndhurst, United Kingdom. It is the fourth largest chemicals company in the world measured by revenues (after BASF, Dow Chemical and LyondellBasell) and the largest privately owned company in the United Kingdom.
MRC

MOSCOW (MRC) -- The European Union rekindled a probe into possible rigging of fuel-price benchmarks, raiding ethanol companies 17 months after officials inspected three oil producers and industry publisher Platts, said Hydrocarbonprocessing.

European Commission investigators on Oct. 7 made surprise inspections on companies involved in the production, distribution and trading of ethanol, the regulator said in a statement. The EU said it’s concerned that price benchmarks may have been distorted due to possible collusion when pricing data was submitted to a price-reporting agency.

The unannounced inspections revitalize a probe into benchmark energy prices produced daily by Platts that has seemingly been dormant for more than a year. EU investigators in May of last year raided Platts along with BP, Statoil, Royal Dutch Shell, Argos Energies and Abengoa, owner of continental Europe’s biggest bioethanol plant.

Copycat probes followed on from last year’s EU raids. The US Federal Trade Commission and the Japanese Fair Trade Commission started quizzing BP in June of 2013. The Korea Fair Trade Commission opened an investigation in December and the US Commodity Futures Trading Commission requested price-reporting documents from BP the following month.

The EU didn’t identify the companies or countries involved in this week’s inspections.

Following last year’s announcement, Platts said its price assessment process was "robust and specifically designed to safeguard against distortion."
MRC

MOSCOW (MRC) -- Russia exported to foreign markets 76,700 tonnes of polyamide 6 (PA 6) over the first nine months of 2014, up by 17% year on year, according to MRC DataScope report.

Unfilled PA 6 accounts for 99% in the structure of the total exports. Kuybyshev-Azot, Russia's key PA 6 producer, manufactures PA 6 for processing in the textile industry as per the yarns/fibers technology and for compounding. The main consumers of Russian PA remained such countries, as China (40% of exports), India (20%), Turkey (15%) and Germany (10%).

India accounted for the largest increase in the consumption of Russian PA 6 over the stated period - 52% year on year. Thus, exports to the region totalled 14,300 tonnes. 33,600 tonnes of material were shipped to China over the said period, up by 16% year on year. Exports to Turkey increased by 20% and reached 11,000 tonnes.

Russia's textile industry is characterized by significantly higher production costs than in such countries, as China, India, Turkey. It is profitable to import already finished products from these countries. Therefore, demand for PA 6 from the textile industry is significantly weaker than the produced quantities.

MRC

MOSCOW (MRC) -- Taekwang Industrial has unexpectedly shut a purified terephthalic acid (PTA) plant in South Korea, reported Apic-online.

A Polymerupdate source in South Korea informed that the plant was shut on October 10, 2014 owing to technical issues. A restart date for the plant could not be ascertained.

Located at Ulsan in South Korea, the plant has a production capacity of 1 million mt/year.

As MRC wrote before, Taekwang Industrial shut down its PTA plant in Ulsan for a 10-day maintenance turnaround on March 10, 2014. The plant's production capacity is 1 million mt/year.

Besides, we remind that China based company Xianglu Petrochemical started up its new purified terephthalic acid (PTA) plant in end-November 2013. Located in Xiamen, China, the plant has a production capacity of 1.5 million mt/year.
MRC

MOSCOW (MRC) -- Imports of polystyrene (high impact polystyrene (HIPS) and general purpose polystyrene (GPPS) to the Ukrainian market dropped over the first three quarters of 2014 by 10% year on year and totalled 19,400 tonnes, according to MRC ScanPlast report.

The devaluation of the national currency and weaker demand in the final products market led to a decline in the Ukrainian PS processing sector. Imports also dropped, despite an outage at Stirol. Traders said buying activity was low in the market.

Weaker demand was registered both in the HIPS and GPPS markets. GPPS imports to Ukraine decreased by 3% over the first nine months of the year to 11,300 tonnes. Traders said the market balance was sustained by packaging and disposable tableware producers. The fall in demand in this segment was not so important.

The situation was more difficult in the HIPS market. Imports fell to more than 17% over the stated period. 8,270 tonnes of HIPS arrived in Ukraine from January to September 2014. The weakest demand was registered from refrigerators and electrical engineering producers.
Only one Ukrainian plant - Stirol (Gorlovka) - produces PS and expandable polystyrene (EPS). The plant has been competely shut down because of the conflict in the east of Ukraine. The producer has not manufactured material since February.

MRC