Westlake Chemical to expand chlor-alkali, PVC and VCM capacities in Germany and Louisiana

MOSCOW (MRC) -- Westlake Chemical Corporation has announced that it will expand capacities for the production of polyvinyl chloride (PVC) and vinyl chloride monomer (VCM) at three of its chemical facilities, as per the company's press release.

Two of the plants are located in Germany (Burghausen, Gendorf) and one is located in Geismar, Louisiana. The expansions in Burghausen and Geismar are expected to be completed in 2019. The Gendorf expansions are expected to be completed in 2020 and 2021.

The expansion projects are expected to add approximately 750 million pounds annually of additional PVC and approximately 200 million pounds annually of additional VCM to the company’s production. Specialty PVC will be expanded at Burghausen and suspension PVC will be expanded at Geismar. VCM production will be expanded at Geismar and Gendorf. In addition, chlor-alkali production will be expanded at the Gendorf facility, adding approximately 55 million pounds annually of chlorine capacity and the associated 60 million pounds annually of membrane caustic soda capacity.

"The chlor-alkali, PVC and VCM capacity expansions in Germany will be our first since we completed the acquisition of our Vinnolit subsidiary in 2014," said Westlake Chemical President and CEO Albert Chao. "These PVC and VCM expansions support our integrated vinyl products chain and demonstrate Westlake’s commitment to provide our global customers with additional production to meet their growing needs."

As MRC informed before, in mid-July 2016, US petrochemical producer Westlake Chemical restarted its Petro-1 steam cracker in Lake Charles, Louisiana. The startup talk was on the tail end of an 80-day planned outage that started on April 19. The turnaround also included a capacity expansion of 113,000 mtpa. The company operates two steam crackers at the site - Petro-1, with current ethylene capacity of 567,000 m tpa, and Petro-2, with 886,000 m tpa.

Westlake Chemical Corporation is an international manufacturer and supplier of petrochemicals, polymers and building products with headquarters in Houston, Texas. The company's range of products includes: ethylene, polyethylene, styrene, propylene, chlor-alkali and derivative products, PVC suspension and specialty resins, PVC Compounds, and PVC building products including siding, pipe, fittings and specialty components, windows, fence, deck and film.
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Suhar refinery in Oman is complete

MOSCOW (MRC) -- Colleagues working on the Suhar Refinery Improvement Project (SRIP) in Oman were delighted to represent Petrofac at a milestone event to celebrate the completion of the Suhar Refinery facility, as per Hydrocarbonprocessing.

The ceremony marked the completion of the project’s overall performance test on 30 December 2017.

Around 400 people attended the event, including Ahmed Saleh Al-Jahdhami, CEO of Orpic, and Christiaan van der Wouden, COO – both of whom presented a number of awards in recognition of outstanding contribution.

Petrofac’s Project Director, Srikanth Nagaraj, was thrilled to be presented with an "Outstanding Achievement" award from Ahmed Saleh Al- Jahdhami, CEO of Orpic. He said: "This is a very proud moment marking the signing of the overall Performance test. The event has been a wonderful opportunity to get together with some of the key partners who have worked so closely since we were awarded the contract in 2013."

Located 230 km north west of Muscat, Petrofac’s scope in delivering the project encompassed engineering, procurement, construction, start-up and commissioning services. The contract included building a state of the art refinery and as well as improvements at the existing Refinery.

Now complete, it is anticipated that the facility will increase previous output by more than 70%.

The project’s safety performance was exemplary, achieving more than 53 million man-hours without a lost time incident. The creation of In-Country Value (ICV) was a guiding principle throughout, involving the training and development of Omani nationals and the support of local supply chains.
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Andeavor to run refineries up to 96 pct combined capacity in Q1

MOSCOW (MRC) -- Independent refiner Andeavor said on Friday it plans to run its 10 U.S. refineries up to 96 percent of their combined capacity of 1.1 million barrels per day (bpd) in the first quarter of 2018, as per Hydrocarbonprocessing.

The company also said during a conference call with Wall Street analysts that its refineries ran at 97 percent of their combined crude oil throughput capacity in the fourth quarter of 2017. For all of 2017, the refineries operated at 95 percent of combined throughput.

Andeavor Chairman and Chief Executive Officer Gregory Goff said the company has a heavy overhaul schedule for 2018. "We are in the final stages of completing a turnaround at Los Angeles that we started some time ago, and we are doing a turnaround at Martinez," Goff said. "So we have a very heavy turnaround year but everything is going well."

Andeavor is integrating refineries into a single plant in Carson and Wilmington, California, adjacent industrial suburbs of Los Angeles. The 269,200 bpd Carson refinery and the 94,900 bpd Wilmington refinery adjoin each other.

Andeavor Chief Financial Officer Steven Sterin said the heavy schedule for refinery maintenance would continue into 2019, in part to prepare for a change in marine fuel formulation to lower sulfur content from 3.5 percent to 0.5 percent. "We are managing our turnarounds to have very, very little turnarounds in 2020," Sterin said. "So our '18 and '19 plans include preparation for being able to supply the needs of the market in 2020 for the diesel fuel that we expect to produce."

Goff said Andeavor sees no alternative to its stymied proposal to build a rail-to-marine crude oil terminal that would transfer 11 million barrels of oil a month from trains to tankers at the Port of Vancouver, Washington. Governor Jay Inslee, a Democrat, on Jan. 31 approved a state board's recommendation denying Andeavor a permit to build the Vancouver Energy Center.

"We continue to scour all ideas and all that but we don't have any immediate plans to do anything differently," Goff said. "The Vancouver Energy project was very attractive primarily because it allows you to take crude produced in the United States with a lower carbon intensity of other crudes that are run by the industry on the West Coast and run those crudes and basically improve the environmental footprint of the fuels that we supply on the West Coast," he said.

In December, Washington Energy Facility Site Evaluation Council unanimously recommended denying Andeavor and partner Savage Cos a permit to build the $210 million center, citing risk of injury to workers and damage to the environment if the center went into operation. Andeavor took a $40 million asset impairment charge in the fourth quarter related to the project.
MRC

Akzo Nobel commissions new powder coatings facility near Mumbai

MOSCOW (MRC) -- India’s fourth largest paint company, Akzo Nobel India Limited commissioned its new powder coatings facility at Thane (near Mumbai, Maharashtra), as per Indiainfoline.

The company invested Rs65cr in the facility and the same was inaugurated by CEO Thierry Vanlancker. Akzo announced this to the stock exchanges on February 15, 2018.

The powder coatings facility in Thane is intended to boost Akzo’s access to markets in North and West India. It will complement the existing plant in Bengaluru (Karnataka) and will have additional lines in bond metallic powder and pipe and re-bar coatings.

A majority of the company’s revenues comes from industrial coatings while the remainder is from decorative paints. Within decorative coatings, it has the famous “Dulux” brand. Within industrial coatings, it has marine coatings, powder coatings, metal coatings, vehicle refinish and specialty coatings in its product portfolio. The recent quarterly results (Q3FY18) clearly reflected pressure on operating margins of ANIL due to input cost inflation and volatile exchange rate. Future safeguarding of operating margins will require the company to take price hikes. Given the improving demand environment, we feel that this should not be very difficult. Economic revival and focus on housing segment will bring volume growth back to double digit levels in Q4FY18.

Akzo Nobel India Ltd is currently trading at Rs1,805, up by Rs1.75 or 0.1% from its previous closing of Rs1,803.25 on the BSE.

MRC

Deloitte Global 2018 chemical industry mergers and acquisitions outlook

MOSCOW (MRC) -- Global chemical mergers and acquisitions (M&A) activity in 2018 is expected to remain strong, as higher valuations continue to be mitigated by improving global economic conditions, continued inexpensive financing, and an appetite amongst industry participants for growth and transformative M&A transactions, according to Deloitte Global's 2018 chemical industry mergers and acquisitions outlook, as per Hydrocarbonprocessing.

A multitude of mega-deals which resulted in record levels of deal value in 2015 and 2016 were not seen in 2017 (46.4 USD billions). Deal volumes on the other hand were just as strong in 2017 with 637 transactions. "There may be a slight decline in deal volume in 2018 as the dispositions from the mega-deals have subsided, but 2018 is expected to be another robust M&A year in the chemical industry," said Dan Schweller, Deloitte Global M&A leader for the Chemicals & Specialty Materials Sector. "Deal flow remains strong and there remains great interest in turning to M&A to further drive shareholder returns."

In the US, historic tax reform measures that have cut tax rates and increased cash repatriation from international locations may serve to support M&A activity. "US corporate taxpayers will likely benefit from having more cash available to invest in improving their shareholders' value—this could result in additional capital expenditures, increasing buybacks or dividends, or in pursuing M&A activity," said Dan Schweller.

During 2017, the number of USD1 billion deals maintained their volume (number of transactions) but notably failed to deliver the mega-deal values established in prior years, falling below the deal values achieved in both 2015 and 2016. It is not expected that 2018 will deliver such deal values either as many sectors have reached a point where regulatory constraints may challenge further consolidation at a large scale.

However, the rise in the M&A market of state-owned oil and gas enterprises moving downstream, rising feedstock prices, and pressure on margins is likely to propel scale and synergy-driven M&A plays as well as portfolio rebalancing amongst traditional commodity chemical players. Consolidation is also likely to continue in more fragmented sectors of specialty chemicals such as the adhesives and sealants sub-sectors. Meanwhile, strong M&A appetites of large players, competition regulator-mandated divestitures, and portfolio realignment resulting from past mega-deals drive M&A transactions.

Activist investors continue to make their presence known in the industry, making a significant impact on the chemical M&A market, both in terms of shaping deals as well as blocking deals from happening. They are expected to continue pressuring companies to focus on core competencies to achieve additional returns on top of historically high valuations, further fueling M&A activity in 2018.
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