PetroChina, Sinopec stocks surge on merger talk

MOSCOW (MRC) -- PetroChina Co. and China Petroleum & Chemical Corp., the nation’s two largest oil companies, jumped by their daily trading limit in Shanghai on Monday on speculation the government is considering consolidating the industry, said Hydrocarbonprocessing.

"Big oil names are soaring because of speculation that the government is studying mergers in the industry," said Clement Cheng, an equity trader at RBC Investment Management Asia in Hong Kong. "The oil sector has been undervalued for a long time."

PetroChina jumped 10% to 14.65 yuan, the highest in more than five years, and China Petroleum, or Sinopec, also rose 10% to 8.56 yuan at the close in Shanghai. The Shanghai Composite Index climbed 3% to 4,527.396.

Separately, the Economic Information Daily reported Monday that China’s state-assets regulator may cut the number of government-owned enterprises to 40 from 112 through mergers and restructuring. The report, which didn’t specifically mention Sinopec or PetroChina, cited people it didn’t identify.

China National Petroleum Corp., the state-owned parent of PetroChina, hasn’t received any information from the government, nor has it spoken with Sinopec about a merger, media director Gong Kai said. A Beijing-based Sinopec spokesman couldn’t be reached for comment.

A merger of the two Chinese oil groups goes against China’s own policy of allowing markets to play a greater role in the allocation of resources, Bloomberg Intelligence analyst Grace Lee said.

"A merger of the two will only create more monopoly, not less," she said. "I don’t see it helping with overseas acquisitions in any way, as a bigger company will certainly invite more antitrust concerns."

PetroChina will announce first-quarter earnings on 27, April. Profit may drop 71% to 9.98 billion yuan, based on the average of three analyst estimates compiled by Bloomberg. Sinopec may post a 1.88 billion yuan first-quarter loss later this week, compared with a 13.5 billion yuan profit a year ago.

As MRC informed earlier, is in plans to commission a new crude oil refinery in China in late 2015. To be located at Anning in Yunnan province of China, the refinery will have a crude processing capacity of 260,000 bpd.

PetroChina Company Limited, is a Chinese oil and gas company and is the listed arm of state-owned China National Petroleum Corporation, headquartered in Dongcheng District, Beijing. It is China's biggest oil producer.

China Petrochemical Corporation (Sinopec Group) is a super-large petroleum and petrochemical enterprise group established in July 1998 on the basis of the former China Petrochemical Corporation. Sinopec Group's key business activities include the exploration and production of oil and natural gas, petrochemicals and other chemical products, oil refining.
MRC

MOSCOW (MRC) -- JX Nippon Oil and Energy is in plans to resume operations at its paraxylene (PX) plant after maintenance turnaround, according to Apic-online.

A Polymerupdate source in Japan informed that the plant was shut on April 24, 2015. The shutdown of the plant coincided with the shutdown of an upstream cracker at the same site.

Thus, the plant remain off-stream for around two weeks.

Located at Kawasaki in Japan, the plant has a production capacity of 350,000 mt/year.

As MRC wrote previously, on 6 January 2015, Japan's JX Nippon Oil and Energy shut its olefins conversion unit (OCU) in Kawasaki indefinitely. The shutdown has been attributed to compressed margins in the wake of low propylene prices as compared to prices of ethylene.

JX has a total PX production capacity of 3.1 million mt/year - the biggest in Asia - across its plants in Kashima, Kawasaki, Mizushima and Oita in Japan as well as in South Korea's Ulsan under a joint venture with SK Global Chemical.
MRC

MOSCOW (MRC) -- W. R. Grace & Co. has announced that it will provide its UNIPOL polypropylene (PP) technology and services to Yunnan Yuntianhua PetroChemical Co., Ltd. for a new PP production facility in Anning Yunnan, China, reported the company on its site.

Yunnan Yuntianhua PetroChemical is a new subsidiary of Yuntianhua Group Co., Ltd., the largest chemical company in Kunming, Yunnan Province. With an expected opening in 2017, the new enterprise plans to purchase propylene from the PetroChina Yuannan refinery and build a unit that will produce polypropylene at a rate of150 kta, or kilotons per year.

Al Beninati, President of Grace Catalysts Technologies, said, "We're delighted with the pace at which the UNIPOL PP technology is being adopted in this growing market. Not only is the technology reliable, but it can also be implemented with low investment and operating cost, is easy to operate, and will produce state-of-the-art PP products. With Yunnan Yuntianhua PetroChemical, our focus, as always, will be on customer service."

Yuntianhua Deputy General Manager Jiang Ling, said, "We are pleased to partner with Grace, the world's leading independent PP technology licensor and catalyst producer. Their UNIPOL PP process technology offers us the most advanced PP product capability available. We are building a facility that will produce world-class products and believe this agreement aligns with our goals for achieving optimum productivity and performance."

As MRC wrote previously, in April 2015, W.R. Grace & Co commissioned a new catalyst logistics silo terminal and finished Phase 1 of construction for the first fluid catalytic cracking (FCC) catalysts manufacturing facility in the Middle East.

Grace is a leading supplier of polyolefin catalyst technology and has the broadest portfolio of polyolefin catalyst technologies of any independent polyethylene/polypropylene catalyst producer. Grace's industry-leading UNIPOL PP licensing and related catalysts include the UNIPOL UNIPPAC Process Control software, SHAC Catalysts Systems, and 6th Generation non-phthalate CONSISTA Catalysts Systems. Grace's 2014 net sales were USD3.2 billion.

UNIPOL and UNIPOL UNIPPAC are trademarks of The Dow Chemical Company or an affiliated company of Dow. W.R. Grace & Co.-Conn. and/or its affiliates are licensed to use the UNIPOL and UNIPOL UNIPPAC trademarks in the area of polypropylene.
MRC

MOSCOW (MRC) -- Arkema Fluorochemicals has announced a new price increase in Europe of 15% for packaged and bulk grades for all Forane HFC products, with immediate effect or as contracts allow, reported the company on its site.

In a macroeconomic environment that has profoundly changed in the past few months, this price increase is necessary to pursue the improvement in the profitability of the HFCs activities and the development of lower GWP alternatives.

Arkema’s Fluorochemicals business unit produces and markets a range of fluorinated gases under the Forane brand in the following markets worldwide:

- Refrigerant fluids for refrigeration and air-conditioning, including commercial and industrial refrigeration, construction, automotive and other applications;
- Blowing agents for polymer foams, specifically polyurethane and polystyrene;
- Feedstock for the production of fluoropolymers;
- Degreasing, cleaning and drying solvents;
-Aerosol sprays.

As MRC wrote previously, in 2014, Arkema, a France-based chemical manufacturer and the world’s second leading producer of organic peroxides, announced the construction of a new organic peroxide plant on its Changshu site in China. This investment will help double the site’s production capacity. By doubling its production capacity in China, Arkema will continue to support the strong growth in the organic peroxide market in Asia, a region in which the Group is also a producer in India, South Korea and Japan. The new Changshu plant is due to come on stream in early 2016.

Arkema with annual revenue of EUR6.7 billion is a leading European supplier of chlorochemicals and PVC. Kynar and Kynar Flex are registered trademarks of Arkema Inc. Arkema operates 11 organic peroxide plants on the three continents.
MRC

МОSCOW (MRC) -- French energy giant Total SA said Tuesday that its net profit slid 20 percent in the first quarter despite a rise in production as slumping oil prices took their toll, said Economictimes.

The company said net profit for the quarter was USD2.66 billion, down from USD3.34 billion a year earlier. That fall came despite a 10 percent rise in hydrocarbon production to 2.4 million barrels a day.

CEO Patrick Pouyanne said Total is "demonstrating its resilience and profiting from its integrated model" in the face of a 50 percent drop in the average Brent crude oil price over the last year.

Total said its Termokarstovoye gas field in Russia's far north will start up during the second quarter. Four other fields are scheduled to start production in the second half.

Total said it is making efforts to cut costs and lower its breakeven levels in response to the lower oil prices. Oil executives admit that the price of a barrel will not return to previous years' average around USD90 anytime soon.

Analysts at research firm IHS predict oil to average USD60 a barrel this year.

Firms are also slashing exploration budgets, with Total aiming to cut its capital spending by 10 percent this year from USD26 billion in 2014.

Total S.A. is a French multinational oil and gas company and one of the six "Supermajor" oil companies in the world with business in Europe, the United States, the Middle East and Asia. The company's petrochemical products cover two main groups: base chemicals and the consumer polymers (polyethylene, polypropylene and polystyrene) that are derived from them.
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