DuPont Q1 operating earnings per share USD1.64

MOSCOW (MRC) -- US conglomerate DuPont announced that its first quarter GAAP earnings per share rose 9% on a yearly basis to USD1.52 on 5% higher revenues of USD7.7 billion, said Nasdaq.

The Delaware-based company's operating earnings per share jumped 30% to USD1.64.

The statement said the highest increase in sales was recorded in agriculture, performance materials and electronics and communications. Agriculture sales grew 4% due to "benefits from local price and volume." It was the sector that best performed with operating earnings rising 12% to USD1,236 million.

"The strength of our new product introductions and increased demand in key markets together resulted in top-line increases in almost every business," said the chemical corporation's chief executive and chairman Ed Breen. He added that they "expect to close the merger [with Dow] in August of this year and quickly begin working on the 500-plus projects already identified to deliver the targeted $3 billion in cost synergies."

The stock added 0.92% upon the release of the first quarter results while it soared over 20% in the past year.

DuPont, in its fourth-quarter call, said that it expects earnings (on a reported basis) for first-quarter 2017 to decline roughly 18% year over year. The guidance includes an expected charge of about 15 cents per share for transaction costs related to the planned merger with Dow Chemical DOW .

The company expects adjusted earnings for the first quarter to increase around 8% year over year factoring in the benefits of cost saving actions and the impact of the change in timing for seed deliveries, mostly related to the southern U.S. route-to-market change in Agriculture, partly masked by an expected reduction in planted corn acres in the U.S. DuPont also expects flat sales for the first quarter on a year over year basis.
MRC

Sadara Chemical announces startup of fourth and final plastics plant

MOSCOW (MRC) -- Sadara Chemical Company (Sadara) announced today the startup of its fourth and final polyethylene unit, the High Pressure Low Density Polyethylene (HP-LDPE) Train. This marks a significant milestone for the company as it continues to bring its world-scale manufacturing facilities on stream, said the company on its web-site.

The HP-LDPE Train joins the two Linear Low Density PE trains (PE Trains 1 & 2) and the one Elastomers train (PE Train 4), which came on stream over the last 15 months, to complete the company’s plastics plants.

Ziad Al-Labban, Sadara CEO, commented on the occasion, saying, "The successful startup of the fourth and final Sadara Plastics plant is a milestone achievement for the Sadara team and illustrates the results of successful teamwork at both the company and shareholder levels. The products from the Plastics plants will provide feedstocks which will support the development of secondary and tertiary manufacturing investments in the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia."

Each of Sadara’s four Plastics plants has world-class capacity and flexible capabilities for producing highly specialized grades of plastic products. PE Trains 1 and 2 produce a wide variety of Linear Low Density Polyethylene (LLDPE) and High Density Polyethylene (HDPE) product grades, while PE Train 4 is the first facility in the Kingdom to produce Elastomers, a very low density form of polyethylene, and has the flexibility to produce LLDPE as well.

In addition to supplying international markets, Sadara’s products will be utilized for downstream applications by investors located in the adjacent PlasChem Park in Jubail, which is a collaborative effort between Sadara and the Royal Commission for Jubail and Yanbu. Located next to Sadara’s chemical complex, PlasChem Park leverages advantages of the strong industrial and services infrastructure in Jubail, secure feedstock, proximity to growing and emerging markets, and a qualified local workforce. Collectively, these factors offer investors unprecedented growth and development opportunities, the potential to create thousands of sustainable jobs, and make a positive and lasting impact on the Saudi economy.

PE Train 3 is one of 26 manufacturing units located in the multi-billion dollar Sadara Chemical Complex in Jubail Industrial City II in Saudi Arabia. Of these units, 14 will deliver products that are completely new to being produced in the GCC.
MRC

Total profits soar 56% in Q1 on oil price rebound

MOSCOW (MRC) -- French energy group Total has approved its first major project in three years and raised its interim dividend thanks to a more than 50 per cent climb in net profits at the start of the year, as per The Financial Times.

In a first quarter trading update, Total said it notched up a 56 per cent rise in its adjusted net income to USD2.6bn in the three months ending in March, up from USD1.6bn in the same quarter last year and beating a forecast of around EUR2.4bn.

Total has been boosted by a 58 per cent climb in Brent crude prices over the period to USD53.7 a barrel and said it would be raising its interim dividend for the first time since 2014 by 1.6 per cent.

The company also approved the development of its Argentinian shale site at Vaca Muerta – its first major project since 2014.

"The strength of the balance sheet and relentless pursuit of cost reductions allows the Group to launch new projects and acquire resources while fully benefiting from the ongoing deflation in the oil sector", said chairman and chief executive Patrick Pouyanne.

MRC

China sets deadline for refiners to apply for oil import permits

MOSCOW (MRC) -- China's top state planner will stop accepting new applications from oil refiners to use imported crude oil from May 5, it said on Thursday, amid growing concerns about domestic refining overcapacity that has led to record exports of fuel, reported Reuters.

China has allowed 22 independent refiners to import crude oil since 2015 with quotas totaling 81.93 MMt, or 1.64 MMbpd, making up 12% of the country's total crude oil imports, according to China Petroleum and Chemical Industry Federation (CPCIF).

Harry Liu, oil analyst with consultancy IHS Markit, said the planner may have set a target of allowing in a total of 2 MMbpd quotas to independents, a level expected to be met with those that have already applied before the May 5 deadline.

"The policy, which is quite expected, also sends the signal that the government is not going to encourage independent firms to add new crude processing capacities," said Liu.

The National Development and Reform Commission (NDRC) did not say in the statement whether it was referring to state-owned or independent refiners, unsettling an already jittery industry after a series of trade policy changes from Beijing in recent months.

The limits, however, do not apply to large state refiners like PetroChina or Sinopec as they typically do not need quotas to import crude oil.

"NDRC is pretty cautious in giving more import quotas because they are concerned about the fuel glut in the domestic market," said a manager at an independent refiner in the city of Zibo in Shandong province. The majority of the independent refiners operate in Shandong on China's east coast.

He reckons he will not be affected by the deadline as he has filed for an import permit, but it could trigger a flurry of applications over the coming week.

In a report published on Wednesday on the industry federation's website, CPCIF warned of worsening overcapacity in the refining industry which has led to net fuel exports expanding at 40-50 percent per annum over the past few years.

The surplus capacity is expected to rise to 110 MMt, or 2.2 MMbpd, by 2020 under a base scenario, and net fuel exports to top 50 MMt, or 15% of the total fuel produced, resulting in China overtaking South Korea and India as Asia's largest fuel exporter, said the association.

As MRC wrote previously, China's Sinopec group, parent of Sinopec Corp, will invest USD29.05 billion to upgrade four refining bases between 2016 and 2020 to produce higher-quality fuels. Sinopec's upgrades come as China, the world's second-biggest oil consumer, is embracing more stringent fuel standards in its battle against pollution and suffering an overall glut in refining capacity. After the upgrades, the total refining capacity of the four refining sites will reach 130 MMtpy, or 2.6 MMbpd, while ethylene capacity will reach 9 MMtpy.
MRC

Haldia Petrochemical plans to restart HDPE/LLDPE swing plant in India

MOSCOW (MRC) -- Haldia Petrochemicals Ltd (HPL) is in plans to brought on-stream its high density polyethylene (HDPE)/linear low density polyethylene (LLDPE) swing plant at the petrochemical complex located in the eastern Indian state of West Bengal, as per Apic-online.

A Polymerupdate source in India informed that the plant is likely to be restarted in a day or two following an unplanned outage. The company has encountered technical glitch at the LLDPE line of the swing plant in end-February 2017.

Located at Haldia in the eastern Indian state of west Bengal, the complex can produce 700,000 mt/year of ethylene and 350,000 mt/year of propylene and provides feedstock to a 330,000 mt/year high density PE plant, a 370,000 mt/year HDPE/linear low PE swing plant and a 350,000 mt/year polypropylene unit.

As MRC informed before, in October 2016, HPL reported a massive fire at the petrochemical complex located in the eastern Indian state of West Bengal.

Haldia Petrochemicals Ltd is a modern naphtha based petrochemical complex at Haldia, West Bengal, India. Haldia has played the role of a catalyst in emergence of more than 500 downstream processing industries in West Bengal with a capacity to process more than 3,50,000 TPA of polymers, among which are polyethylene (PE) and polypropylene (PP).
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