Hanwa and Integr8 Fuels added to Platts Asia bunker MOC process

MOSCOW (MRC) — S&P Global Platts added Hanwa Singapore Pte Ltd and Integr8 Fuels Inc last week to its Asia Market On Close (MOC) assessment process for Singapore physical bunkers, as per Hydrocarbonprocessing.

The two companies are among the latest additions to the MOC process for physical marine fuels, also known as bunkers, after PetroChina International and Maersk Oil Trading Singapore were added in September and Aegean Marine Petroleum in October.

Singapore is the world’s largest bunker fuels market and serves as Asia’s pricing hub for the marine fuel.

The MOC is a process used by Platts to assess the value of crude oil, petroleum products including bunker fuels, and related derivatives.
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MOSCOW (MRC) -- ChinaCoal Mengda New Energy & Chemical Co has restarted a polypropylene (PP) plant following an unplanned outage, as per Apic-online.

A Polymerupdate source in China informed that the company has resumed operations at the plant on December 28, 2017. The plant was shut on December 20, 2017 owing to technical issues.

Located at Ordos, Inner Mongolia of China, the PP plant has a production capacity of 300,000 mt/yr.

As MRC informed before, another major petrochemical producer in China - Sinopec Yangzi Petrochemical - in mid-May 2017, took off-stream its PP plant for a maintenance turnaround. The duration of the planned shutdown could not be ascertained. Located in Jiangsu province, China, the plant comprising three units have a production capacity of 200,000 mt/year, 100,000 mt/year and 100,000 mt/year.
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MOSCOW (MRC) -- The Chinese company China National Chemical Corporation (ChemChina) is seeking to list its subsidiary KraussMaffei, a leading supplier of machinery and systems for producing and processing plastics and rubber, on a stock exchange in China, as per GV.

To this end, KraussMaffei is to be brought into the Qingdao Tianhua Institute of Chemistry Engineering Co. Ltd, which is listed on the Shanghai Stock Exchange and a subsidiary of ChemChina, by way of injecting its equity interest into an existing listed company under ChemChina. In addition, it is planned to integrate amongst others three sites for the production of tyres and rubber facilities from ChemChina into the listed entity. The transaction is subject to approvals by relevant bodies and regulators.

"KraussMaffei’s business would make up about 85 % of the listed company", said Frank Stieler, CEO of KraussMaffei. KraussMaffei would continue to expand the international business from Germany as well as drive the Chinese business locally. Through the planned access to the Chinese capital market, KraussMaffei will be able to accelerate its growth in the mid-term. The company already increased its revenue for fiscal 2016 by 5 % to EUR 1.27 billion and is heading to cross the mark of EUR 1.3 billion in 2017. Since April 2016 KraussMaffei is under majority ownership of the Chinese chemicals company ChemChina.

The planned transaction is the next step in the development of KraussMaffei. In 2016 the company solidified its technological market position in the plastics and rubber industries and with the change in ownership laid the foundation to enhance its profitable growth. “Through the planned transaction we are receiving access to the capital market. Through new financial resources we have the opportunity to continue to develop our company and accelerate our planned growth”, said Frank Stieler, CEO of KraussMaffei. In the current fiscal year 350 new jobs are expected to be created. In August 2017 KraussMaffei globally already exceeded the 5,000-employee mark.

The company headquarters of KraussMaffei remain in Munich, Germany. The German co-determination rights, the legal form of the company as well as employee and union agreements remain unchanged. The employee representatives and IG Metall therefore welcome KraussMaffei’s next step. “The further improved access to the Chinese market will continue to generate growth through which existing jobs in Germany and Europe will be secured”, said Peter Krahl, Chairman of the works council of KraussMaffei. The IG Metall also has a positive view on these developments. “Under the new ownership KraussMaffei is on a clear course. Most recently the 5,000th employee was hired. ChemChina is a reliable partner”, said Horst Lischka, Company Representative of the IG Metall responsible for Munich and member of the Chairman’s Committee of the Supervisory Board of KraussMaffei.

ChemChina remains actual controller of KraussMaffei and will continue to support the future growth of the company. "We have always believed in the growth potential of the company. Through a future listing on the Shanghai stock exchange, the perception of KraussMaffei will significantly increase in the Chinese market. Chinese investors appreciate German industrial workmanship as well as management competency," said Jianxin Ren, Chairman of ChemChina.
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MOSCOW (MRC) — Demand to ship gasoline on Colonial Pipeline has sunk to a two-month low as Gulf Coast supplies are increasingly being exported or sent to the Midwest rather than to the New York harbor, said Hydrocarbonprocessing.

Colonial Pipeline Co, the largest US fuel network, has consistently allocated space for at least the past two months, meaning demand has exceeded capacity on the pipeline. But it would not ration space on its main gasoline line for the next five-day shipping cycle, known as "Cycle 2", the sources said, which suggests lower demand.

Colonial spokeswoman Malesia Dunn said the company does not speculate on rumors. The sources could not speak for attribution because the information is not public. Refinery outages in the Midwest have sent traders scrambling to buy Gulf barrels, sending prices in those regions to one-month highs last week.

Gulf prices have also been supported by export demand, particularly out of Mexico, traders said. New York harbor (NYH) prices have weakened due to steady imports and seasonal slowdown in demand, making it less lucrative to ship to the East Coast. "NYH is just too cheap ... not pulling barrels," one East Coast trader said.

A prolonged production cut at ExxonMobil Corp’s 238,600 bpd Joliet, Illinois, refinery and Marathon Petroleum’s purchases of spot barrels prompted a surge in Chicago gasoline prices. In June, demand to haul gasoline on Colonial’s line to the country’s populous Northeast fell for the first time in about 6 yr.

Chicago gasoline traded as high as 11.50 cents a gallon above January futures last week, the highest since mid-November. Meanwhile, in the New York harbor traded as low as 0.60 cent a gallon under January futures, traders said, the lowest since May.

Colonial’s Line 1, with a capacity of 1.2 MMbpd, runs from Houston to Greensboro, North Carolina. Allocation is typically for the segment north of Collins, Mississippi. The pipeline’s Cycle 1 schedules on Thursday.

Traders have also been clearing out inventory ahead of year-end, and there is less to transport at the beginning of the year, one shipper said.

Weakness in New York prices should be temporary, traders said. Chicago prices tend to ease in the first quarter, and demand in Mexico is expected to decline as peak driving season concludes.

Meanwhile, gasoline inventories in the New York harbor are on the decline, falling by 400,000 bbl last week, according to traders citing Genscape data. That should help revive some Colonial volumes, traders said.
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MOSCOW (MRC) -- Lotte Advanced Materials, a subsidiary of Lotte, has signed an agreement with an unidentified party to acquire two acrylonitrile butadiene styrene (ABS) companies in Indonesia, according to Yonhap News Agency, as per Apic-online.

Lotte will purchase PT Arbe Styrindo and PT ABS Industri Indonesia, the only two ABS producers in Indonesia, for an undisclosed amount, the report said.

Once the acquisition is finalized, Lotte plans to normalize operations at the units, which have been suspended since October 2017 due to financial difficulties.

Lotte will increase their combined production capacity to 73,000 t/y from 40,000 t/y currently. Commercial production is scheduled to begin from 2019.

As MRC informed before, in May 2016, Lotte Chemical Corp. has finalized the takeover of Samsung Group’s chemical units.The company said that it paid for money to acquire Samsung SDI Chemical on Apr. 29 and completed the acquisition of Samsung Group’s chemical businesses in about six months after the announcement of "Big Deal" in October 2015. Samsung Fine Chemicals, which was completely taken over by Lotte in Feb., changed its name to Lotte Fine Chemical, while SDI Chemical, which completed the acquisition process on the 29th, changed its name to Lotte Advanced Materials through the general meeting of stockholders.

Established in 1976, Lotte Chemical has been solidifyng its position by localizing cutting-edge petrochemical technologies. Among the high-quality products produced by Lotte Chemical through its efficient processes are ethylene, HDPE, LDPE, LLDPE, PP, functional resin, EG, SM, PIA, PET, etc. Lotte Chemical’s products are being distributed to 152 countries around the world. With the acquisition of Pakistan’s PTA in 2009, Artenius in the UK in 2010 and Titan Chemical Corp., Lotte Chemical is now able to efficiently supply excellent products to an increasing number of countries. The company is further accelerating its efforts to strengthen its global competitiveness by establishing overseas branches in Hong Kong, Russia, and USA, along with the sales corporation in China for active sales activities both in domestic and abroad.
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