Williams announces organizational realignment to advance natural gas-focused strategy and drive value

MOSCOW (MRC) -- Williams Companies, Inc. has recently announced that it has introduced certain changes in the organization to simplify its structure as well as enhance direct operational alignment, as per the company's statement.

The move is aimed at the development of the company’s proven, natural gas-focused strategy and to retain focus on customer service and execution.

Williams intends to consolidate the number of Operating Areas within the company to three – Atlantic-Gulf, West and Northeast Gathering & Processing - from five, by early 2017.

According to the organizational changes, NGL & Petchem Services operations in the Gulf area, the Geismar olefins plant, the refinery grade propylene splitter and pipelines in the Gulf Coast region will be incorporated into the Atlantic-Gulf Operating Area. Atlantic-Gulf will retain the Transco interstate gas pipeline, which is the nation’s largest and fastest-growing interstate natural gas transmission pipeline system.

Transco is a 10,200-mile network with a mainline that extends nearly 1,800 miles between South Texas and New York City. . Substantial natural gas gathering and processing, and crude oil production and handling and transportation in the Gulf Coast region will also be included under Atlantic-Gulf. Rory Miller, a 30-year energy industry veteran who has led the area since 2013, will continue to work in the same capacity.

The West Operating Area will include all gathering systems, operations and commercial activities in the Barnett, Eagle Ford and Haynesville shales, the Mid-Continent region and Permian Basin. It will also comprise the Northwest Pipeline interstate gas pipeline system as well as gathering, processing and treating operations in Wyoming, the Piceance Basin and the Four Corners area.

Moreover, an NGL fractionator and storage facilities near Conway, KS, a rail loading facility at Hutchinson, KS and a 50% equity-method interest in Overland Pass Pipeline will be operated within the West Operating Area. Also, included is a non-operated 50% interest in the Delaware Basin gas gathering system in the Permian Basin region. The consolidated West Operating Area will be headed by Walter Bennett, who has led the West Operating Area since joining Williams in 2014.

Operations in Pennsylvania, West Virginia, Ohio and New York will continue to remain under the Northeast Gathering & Processing Operating Area. The area comprises the Susquehanna Supply Hub and Ohio Valley Midstream. It also includes a 69% equity investment in Laurel Mountain Midstream and a 58.4% equity investment in Caiman Energy II, which owns a 50% interest in Blue Racer Midstream. Jim Scheel, who joined Williams in 1988, will continue to lead the Northeast Gathering & Processing Operating Area.

As MRC informed earlier, in February 2015, Williams Cos. Inc. closed on what one energy industry group called "deal of the year" in 2014 by completing its merger of natural gas pipeline entities Williams Partners LP and Access Midstream Partners LP.

Williams, headquartered in Tulsa, Okla., is one of the leading energy infrastructure companies in North America. It owns controlling interests in both Williams Partners L.P. and Access Midstream Partners, L.P. through its ownership of 100% of the general partner of each partnership. Additionally, Williams owns approximately 66% and 50% of the limited partner units of Williams Partners L.P. and Access Midstream Partners, L.P., respectively. On June 15, 2014 Williams proposed the merger of Williams Partners and Access Midstream Partners. The proposed merger has been approved by boards of each partnership and was closed in early 2015.
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MOSCOW (MRC) -- Lotte Chemical Titan is plans to shut its Low density polyethylene (LDPE) unit for a maintenance turnaround, reported Apic-online.

A Polymerupdate source in Malaysia informed that the company will be taking its unit off-stream in December 2016. The unit is likely to shut in early-December and expected to remian off-line until end-December 2016.

Located at Pasir Gudang, Malaysia, the LDPE unit has a production capacity of 230,000 mt/year.

As MRC wrote before, Lotte Chemical Titan is studying the possibility of building a USD4 billion upstream plant to reduce imports of raw materials. Around 40% of the total investment needed for the new plant would be taken from the company’s internal cash, while the rest would be from bank loans. Lotte Chemical, which currently has a production capacity of 450,000 tons of polyethylene per year, expects the upstream plant to boost production capacity to 1 million tons by creating ethylene.

Lotte Chemical Titan produces Malaysia's most comprehensive portfolio of olefins and polyolefins which contribute to the enhancement of everyday life. Lotte Chemical Titan's production site in Malaysia consists of eleven process facilities, two co-generation plants and three tank farms. They are located on 2 sites in Pasir Gudang and Tanjung Langsat in the state of Johor. In 2006, Lotte Chemical Titan acquired PT Lotte Chemical Titan Nusantara, Indonesia’s first and largest polyethylene plant in the country. This acquisition boosted the polyolefins capacity by approximately 50%, thus making the company one of the largest producers in South East Asia. Lotte Chemical Titan was acquired by Lotte Chemical Corp., forming part of the Lotte conglomerate of Korea, in 2010. The company thus became one of Lotte Chemical Corp.’s largest overseas subsidiaries.
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MOSCOW (MRC) -- Celanese Corporation, a global technology and specialty materials company, has presented innovations in ethylene-vinyl-acetate (EVA) polymers, the company's press release.

"Celanese is working with its customers to develop state-of-the-art drug delivery systems using our pharmaceutical material solutions," said Susan Rahe, global business director, Celanese EVA polymers business. "VitalDose EVA polymers offer pharmaceutical companies flexibility in product design to supply excipients that can be formulated to meet demanding release criteria and regulatory requirements."

"Our broad medical and pharmaceutical polymer portfolio is creating comfortable and easy-to-use drug delivery devices and implants," said Kelsey Achenbach, strategic marketing manager for the Celanese EVA polymers business. "Improving patient care has led to recent innovations in our EVA polymer portfolio that are creating broader device and implant design options to meet changing drug delivery needs."

VitalDose EVA - acontrolled-release excipient ideal for use in pharmaceutical drug delivery implants that require a consistent release of active ingredients. VitalDose EVA polymers may be used alone or in combination with other excipients and/or additives to achieve desired release-rate profiles.

As MRC reported previously, Celanese last increased its EVA and LDPE prices on 1 May 2016, as follows: prices of Ateva EVA grew by USD50/tonne for Asia, whereas LDPE prices went up by USD0.04/lg (USD 0.09/kg or USD90/tonne) for North and South America and by USD50/tonne for Asia.

Celanese Corporation is a global technology leader in the production of differentiated chemistry solutions and specialty materials used in most major industries and consumer applications. Based in Dallas, Celanese employs approximately 7,000 employees worldwide and had 2015 net sales of USD5.7 billion.
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MOSCOW (MRC) -- Honeywell UOP is introducing a new software-based service designed to allow refiners and petrochemical and gas processing plants to improve performance, as per Hydrocarbonprocessing.

Honeywell UOP’s new Connected Performance Services (CPS) business leverages the Industrial Internet of Things(IIoT) to tap Honeywell’s process knowledge, design expertise, and understanding of catalysis with next-generation software platforms from Honeywell Process Solutions.

"This cloud-enabled service makes plants smarter and more responsive," said Zak Alzein, vice president for CPS. "Problems that caused plants to be less efficient or less productive and went undetected for weeks or months now can be resolved quickly and proactively. Decisions that used to take days now can be made in hours. For many plants, the avoidance of downtime, suboptimal performance and better agility can be worth millions of dollars per year."

The CPS offerings include applications to address critical challenges for refineries and petrochemical and gas processing plants, including better asset utilization, unplanned downtime, energy efficiency, and gaps in expertise as plants becomes more sophisticated and experienced engineers retire. The CPS offerings are part of the larger IIoT ecosystem being built by Honeywell to allow end users to harness IIoT technology to tap the deep expertise of Honeywell UOP and other leading suppliers and partners.

At the heart of the CPS offering is a cloud-based software service that continuously monitors streaming plant data and applies advanced analytics and machine learning, leveraging UOP process models and best practices to find latent or emerging underperformance, alert plant personnel and make specific operational recommendations. The system runs continuously with user-friendly digital dashboards that provide highly intuitive context and actionable understanding of a plant’s performance. The same dashboards are reported simultaneously to a dedicated Honeywell UOP process advisor who also monitors performance and can provide additional direction and resources.

In addition to identifying underperforming assets and anticipating equipment failures and process issues, Honeywell can monitor and help manage energy use to support compliance with stricter regulatory standards, and also can bridge knowledge gaps among personnel who may not be fully experienced with their equipment. Roughly half of the industry’s most highly-tenured staff are expected to retire in the next seven years.

"The unique feature to this solution is the combination of customer operating data and UOP expertise that provides plant personnel with early-stage warnings that identify performance improvements," Alzein said. "Advancements in software, instrumentation and big data capabilities have finally converged, which makes it possible for the first time to offer a cloud-based IIoT solution that brings the connected plant to the oil and gas industries. That combination is made even more powerful by UOP’s century-long knowledge of process technology, equipment, catalysis and commercial best practices."

Honeywell UOP’s CPS platform is designed around the user experience, providing a practical interface that is easy to read and understand and that provides quick and easy analysis and recommendations.

By leveraging powerful embedded root cause analysis models, it puts critical performance information at the user’s fingertips to improve performance and offers predictive insights to identify issues well before they could result in costly problems.

As MRC informed previously, in 2015, Honeywell opened a new manufacturing facility in China to produce catalysts used to make components for plastics production. This new site in Zhangjiagang City, Jiangsu Province, has begun production of catalysts used to covert propane to propylene as traditional sources for this product shrink. The catalysts are used in the Oleflex process developed by Honeywell’s UOP, a global leader in technology for the oil and gas industries. Over the past four years, UOP says it has licensed its Oleflex technology to 30 producers globally, including 25 in China. The first two of these new plants came online in China last year.
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MOSCOW (MRC) -- Celanese Corporation, a global technology and specialty materials company, has announced that its wholly owned subsidiary, Celanese US Holdings LLC, priced a public offering of EUR750 million aggregate principal amount of its 1.125% Senior Notes due 2023, as per the company's press release.

The Notes will be guaranteed on a senior unsecured basis by the company and, initially, certain of the Issuer's U.S. subsidiaries.

The company intends to use the net proceeds from the offering to repay amounts outstanding under its existing senior unsecured revolving credit facility of EUR367 million (as of July 15, 2016). We intend to use the excess proceeds for general corporate purposes.

The Notes are being offered pursuant to the company's existing shelf registration statement filed with the securities and exchange Commission. A prospectus supplement, together with the accompanying prospectus, describing the terms of the offering will be filed with the SEC.

As MRC wrote before, Celanese Corporation increased list and off-list selling prices for low density polyethylene (LDPE) polymers in North and South America. The price increase was effective September 1, 2016, or as contracts allow. Thus, LDPE prices will grow by USD0.05/lb (USD0.11/kg or USD110/tonne) for North and South America.

Besides, earlier, Celanese Corporation raised its list and off-list selling prices for Ateva ethylene-vinyl-acetate (EVA) and LDPE polymers in North and South America on July 1, 2016. Prices of Ateva EVA and LDPE rose by USD0.05/lg (USD 0.11/kg or USD110/tonne) for North and South America.

Celanese Corporation is a global technology leader in the production of differentiated chemistry solutions and specialty materials used in most major industries and consumer applications. Based in Dallas, Texas, Celanese employs approximately 7,500 employees worldwide and had 2014 net sales of USD6.8 billion.
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