Petronas Chemicals cancels elastomers project

MOSCOW (MRC) -- Petronas Chemicals Group Bhd (PCG) has cancelled a proposed elastomers project at the Refinery and Petrochemicals Integrated Development (Rapid) project in Johor, said the producer on its site.

In a filing to Bursa Malaysia today, PCG said, the cancellation of the project followed a review which was conducted on various key aspects of the elastomers project, including the product's market outlook and projected return on investment.

"The group expects the project cancellation to improve its overall returns of investments," it said.

As per the 3 November 2015 announcement, the initial total projected investment cost for the polymers, glycols and elastomers segments was approximately USD3.9 billion with a combined capacity of 3.5 million metric tons per annum (mtpa). The cancellation of the elastomers project will result in capacity reduction of 0.35 million mtpa and projected investment cost by USD1.3 billion.

PCG remains committed to the rest of the petrochemical projects that it had undertaken, namely the polymers and glycols projects. The cancellation of the elastomers project is not expected to have any impact on the commencement date for PRPC Polymers and PRPC Glycols which is scheduled to start in 2019.

As MRC reported before, Petronas plans to build a C6-based metallocene linear LDPE plant and a low density polyethylene (LDPE)/ethylene vinyl acetate (EVA) swing plant at its greenfield integrated refinery and petrochemical complex in southern Johor state by mid-2019. The proposed metallocene LLDPE will have a capacity of 350,000 tpa, while the LDPE/EVA will have a capacity of about 150,000 tpa. The two plants are part of Petronas' planned Refinery and Petrochemical Integrated Development project in Pengerang at Johor. RAPID includes a 300,000 bpd refinery and a petrochemical complex with a 3 million tpa steam cracker, and is expected to come onstream in mid-2019. The petrochemical complex will have the capacity to produce 7.7 million tpa of petrochemical products.

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) -- BOPP film manufacturer Treofan is combining the responsibility for its European plants into a single corporate function: Chief Operations Officer Europe (COO Europe), said Packagingeurope.

This role will be filled by Luigi Martinese (49), who has been with Treofan since 1995 and has been responsible for the Group’s Italian sites for over 15 years. As COO Europe, Martinese will be in charge of the German plant in Neunkirchen as well as the Italian plants in Battipaglia and Terni.

This change makes Treofan’s European organization even more efficient. Besides COO Luigi Martinese, the newly created European Board includes Business Unit Managers Carolyn Wagner (Packaging and Labels), Nico Schoeman (Tobacco Packaging and Technical Films) and Dr. Franz Josef Kruger (Treopore Separators), plus a Supply Chain Manager to be appointed soon. The European Board reports to the Group Board in Raunheim.

The realignment removes the need for the Global COO position formerly held by Dr. Hady Seyeda, who is leaving the company. “I would like to personally thank Hady Seyeda for everything he did for us in the past years, and I wish him all the best for the future,” says Group CEO Dr. Walter Bickel.

Alongside CEO Dr. Walter Bickel, Dr. Boris Trautmann (49) becomes the Group’s second Managing Director, a position he already held from 2011-2014. While Dr. Bickel is responsible for all operational areas as well as finance, innovation and IT, Dr. Trautmann as General Counsel oversees human resources, legal, compliance, patents and internal audit.

Comments Dr. Walter Bickel: By adapting our European management structure to the model already used in the Americas division with great success, we can now respond even more flexibly and rapidly to customer and market needs.

As MRC informed earlier, Max India has sold its 50,000 tpa profitable biaxially oriented polypropylene (BOPP) film facility, Max Speciality Films, to Treofan, a German global technology leader for BOPP film, for Rs 5.4 billion (USD97 mln).

Treofan Group is a global technology leader for biaxially oriented polypropylene film (BOPP). Treofan, which develops and sells BOPP films in over 90 countries around the world, has already production facilities in Europe and the Americas. Company offers the most diverse and comprehensive product range within the industry, providing packaging, label and tobacco film applications as well as films for electronic devices, such as capacitors.

MRC

MOSCOW (MRC) -- HNA Group Co., Ltd. ("HNA") and gategroup Holding AG (“gategroup”) have jointly announced that the two companies have entered into a definitive transaction agreement pursuant to which HNA will launch an all cash public tender offer for all publicly held registered shares of gategroup, said Gategroup.

The Board of Directors of gategroup has unanimously resolved to support the public tender offer by HNA and to recommend the acceptance of HNA's public tender offer to gategroup's shareholders.

Upon completion of the public tender offer, HNA intends to delist gategroup from the SIX Swiss Exchange and operate the company as an autonomous portfolio company within the HNA group. HNA is committed to retaining gategroup's headquarters in Switzerland and supporting gategroup's Gateway 2020 strategy as a responsible industrial owner with a long-term investment horizon.

HNA is a multinational conglomerate encompassing aviation, airport management, financial services, real estate, retail, tourism, and logistics.

gategroup is an independent global provider of products, services and solutions related to a passenger’s onboard experience. It comprises the following brands: deSter, eGate Solutions, Gate Aviation, Gate Gourmet, Gate Retail Onboard, Gate Safe, Harmony, Performa, potmstudios, Pourshins and Supplair.
MRC

MOSCOW (MRC) -- French oil and gas company Total said on Wednesday that it signed an agreement with Korea Gas to extend the cooperation in their liquefied natural gas (LNG) businesses, said Hydrocarbonprocessing.

The agreement is designed to jointly identify and pursue opportunities to develop the LNG market in Asia and in new importing countries, Total said in a statement.

The French group added that the firms would also cooperate in LNG trading and terminal optimization.

Total and Korea Gas are partners in the USD18.5-billion Gladstone LNG project in Australia alongside other companies including Santos and Petronas.

As MRC informed earlier, the CEO of France's Total, Europe’s third-largest oil company, said that the company's priority on getting back into Iran's energy sector was gas and petrochemicals.

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.
MRC

MOSCOW (MRC) -- Saudi Kayan Petrochemical Co., an affiliate of Saudi Basic Industries Corp. (SABIC), made a net loss of 216.3 million riyals (USD57.7 million) in the three months to Mar. 31, said Reuters.

This compares with a loss of 591.6 million riyals in the same period of 2015.

The average estimate of three analysts polled by Reuters was for a quarterly loss of 373.8 million riyals. The company cited an increase in production and sales volumes, a decrease in the costs of feedstock and other raw materials, as well as lower marketing fees for the reduction in losses.

Like many petrochemical firms in the kingdom, Kayan's earnings have been hit hard by falling product prices as they are closely tied to the price of oil: it had reported losses in the preceding four quarters.

Kayan's plant that produces ethylene glycol and oxide ethylene was offline throughout March for scheduled maintenance, with the move also halting production of polycarbonate, ethoxylates and amines. The financial impact of the shutdown was estimated to be 96 million riyals, which would be reflected in its first- and second-quarter results.

Kayan was among a few companies that received a grace period for receiving feedstock at subsidised prices. This will end in the second quarter of 2017, at which point prices will gradually rise until the fourth quarter of 2017.

Kayan's feedstock includes ethane, butane and methane.

As MRC informed earlier, Saudi Kayan Petrochemical Company (Saudi Kayan, an affiliate of the country's petrochemical major SABIC), has awarded the construction of an additional cracking furnace at its steamcracker complex at Jubail Industrial City to Taiwan's CTCI.

Saudi Kayan Petrochemical Company is a manufacturing affiliate of the Saudi Basic Industries Corporation (Sabic).

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