LyondellBasell names James Guilfoyle Executive Vice President, Advanced Polymer Solutions and Global Supply Chain

MOSCOW (MRC) -- LyondellBasell, one of the largest plastics, chemicals and refining companies in the world, has announced it has named James (Jim) Guilfoyle executive vice president, Advanced Polymer Solutions and Global Supply Chain, as per the company's press release.

In this capacity, Guilfoyle will continue to report to Chief Executive Officer Bob Patel.

"Jim has been a key player in our company's success and has provided outstanding leadership for our Intermediates and Derivatives segment," Patel said. "As our company enters its next phase, with a robust slate of growth opportunities before us, I am confident Jim will provide the same strong leadership as we establish our new Advanced Polymer Solutions platform."

LyondellBasell's Advanced Polymer Solutions reporting segment will be created following the company's completion of the A. Schulman, Inc. acquisition. The new segment will include LyondellBasell's existing polypropylene compounding business, the assets acquired from A. Schulman, as well as the company's existing Polybutene-1 and Catalloy businesses. To date, LyondellBasell's acquisition of A. Schulman has been approved by regulators in the United States, Brazil, Mexico, China, the European Commission, Russia, Serbia and Turkey.

Guilfoyle has spent his career at LyondellBasell and its predecessor companies, starting in 1993 as a chemical engineer in La Porte, Texas before attaining several managerial and technical positions within the company. Most recently, Guilfoyle served as the company's senior vice president for Global Intermediates and Derivatives and Global Supply Chain.

As MRC reported previously, in August 2016, LyondellBasell made the final investment decision to build a high density polyethylene (HDPE) plant on the US Gulf Coast. The plant will have an annual capacity of 1.1 billion pounds (500,000 metric tons) and will be the first commercial plant to employ LyondellBasell's new proprietary Hyperzone PE technology. The start-up of the new plant is scheduled for 2019.

LyondellBasell is one of the largest plastics, chemicals and refining companies in the world. Driven by its 13,000 employees around the globe, LyondellBasell produces materials and products that are key to advancing solutions to modern challenges like enhancing food safety through lightweight and flexible packaging, protecting the purity of water supplies through stronger and more versatile pipes, and improving the safety, comfort and fuel efficiency of many of the cars and trucks on the road. LyondellBasell sells products into approximately 100 countries and is the world's largest licensor of polyolefin technologies.
MRC

MOSCOW (MRC) -- Total and Tata Consultancy Services (TCS) have signed a partnership agreement to create a digital innovation center in India. Based in Pune in the State of Maharashtra, the center will explore disruptive technologies and solutions, as per Total's press release.

"For a large industrial group like Total, it is essential to always stay ahead of these topics", said Marie-Noelle Semeria, Senior Vice President and Group Chief Technology Officer at Total. "After having integrated digital solutions within the Group, we now want to invent those of tomorrow by combining Total's know-how with the agility of TCS."

The partnership will initially focus on refining. Thanks to the intensive use of digital technology, the various building blocks of refining (production units, processes, the supply chain and petroleum product markets) will be driven in a wide-ranging way to improve refinery performance. Real-time data analytics, the Internet of Things, automation, artificial intelligence and agile methodology will be used to improve industrial efficiency, energy performance and availability rates.

"With the digital innovation center, we are positioning ourselves as a pioneer working to develop a smart, connected refinery that will allow us to improve our industrial competitiveness. We want to invent the Refinery 4.0" said Bernard Pinatel, President, Refining & Chemicals at Total.

Based on the TCS concept of “entrepreneurship-in-residence,” Total will work with TCS technology and domains experts. TCS will also bring to Total its network, its structured co-innovation approach and its unique Business 4.0 cooperation framework.

"The energy and resources sector is one of TCS’ fastest growing business units. We are delighted to sign this strategic digital innovation partnership with Total for which we will leverage our Business 4.0 framework, with a focus on agile, intelligent automation, internet of things, analytics and cloud-based solutions," said Debashish Ghosh, President of Energy, Resources and EPC Business at TCS.

As MRC wrote earlier, in December 2017, Total inaugurated the new units at its Antwerp integrated refining & petrochemicals platform, which had progressively started up in the previous few months.

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) -- Negotiations over prices of European polyvinyl chloride (PVC) for August shipments to the CIS countries started last week. European producers slightly reduced their export prices amid stability in ethylene prices in the region, according to ICIS-MRC Price report.

The August contract price of ethylene was agreed at the level of July, which did not affect the net cost of PVC production. However, despite this fact, European producers had to reduce export prices for deliveries to the CIS markets even amid shutdowns for maintenance at several plants.

This month's demand for PVC was weak from the main consumers in the CIS countries, except for demand for resin with K=70. Demand for this PVC is strong, whereas supply is tight.

Some of European producers' production capacities are idle, conducting turnarounds, the others have equipment interruptions because of the heat. And these factors affected export sales of some producers, but there was no acute shortage.

Negotiations over August shipments of suspension polyvinyl chloride (SPVC) to the CIS markets were held in the range of EUR735-790/tonne FCA, whereas deals were done in the range of EUR745-800/tonne FCA a month earlier.
MRC

MOSCOW (MRC) -- Royal Dutch Shell Plc is restarting the gasoline-producing unit at its 209,787-barrel-per-day (Mbpd) Convent, Louisiana, refinery, sources familiar with plant operations said Reuters on Monday.

The 92 Mbpd gasoline-producing Fluidic Catalytic Cracking Unit (FCCU) is expected to return to full production by the weekend, if not sooner, the sources said. The unit was shut on May 30 for a planned overhaul.

We remind that, as MRC wrote before, in March 2018, Shell EP Middle East Holdings B.V. completed the sale of the entire share capital of Shell Iraq B.V (SIBV), which held its 19.6% stake in the West Qurna 1 oil field, for USD406 million, to a subsidiary of ITOCHU Corporation.

Royal Dutch Shell plc is incorporated in England and Wales, has its headquarters in The Hague and is listed on the London, Amsterdam, and New York stock exchanges. Shell companies have operations in more than 70 countries and territories with businesses including oil and gas exploration and production; production and marketing of liquefied natural gas and gas to liquids; manufacturing, marketing and shipping of oil products and chemicals and renewable energy projects.
MRC

MOSCOW (MRC) -- China's crude oil imports recovered slightly in July after falling for the previous two months but were still among the lowest this year due to a drop-off in demand from the country's smaller independent, or "teapot", refineries, reported Reuters.

Crude shipments came in at 36.02 million tonnes last month, or 8.48 million barrels per day, up from 8.18 MMbpd a year ago, and just up on June's 8.36 MMbpd, data from the General Administration of Customs showed.

However, July imports were still the third lowest so far this year.

The slight pick-up likely reflected some teapot plants returning from maintenance, while refining margins also improved thanks to higher domestic fuel prices, said James Gao of consultancy China Sublime Information Group.

But overall, independent plants were under pressure from thinning margins since March following a new government tax regulation and near four-year high oil prices, with one plant having already declared bankruptcy.

Independent refiner Shandong Haiyou Petrochemical Group filed for bankruptcy in late July and its crude processing units have been shut indefinitely.

State-owned refineries, however, are maintaining robust refining margins as they dominate the retail market and also have fuel export quotas, and as competition from teapots is waning.

China's largest refiner Sinopec Corp is due to deliver its best quarterly result since 2013 later this month, thanks to robust refining business and rebound in oil prices.

Rival PetroChina expects its first-half profits to more than double from the year-ago period.

For the first seven months, China took in 260.83 million tonnes, or 8.98 million bpd of crude oil, up 5.6 percent from a year earlier.

China's refined products exports last month were 4.57 million tonnes, nearly flat from a year earlier. Fuel imports rose 14 percent on year at 2.67 million tonnes.

Total natural gas imports - including pipeline gas and liquefied natural gas - rose to 7.38 million tonnes, up 28.3 percent from a year ago, customs said.

Companies have scaled back purchases of spot LNG cargoes in recent months as prices shot up, traders said.

Year-to-date gas imports grew 34.3 percent on year to 49.43 million tonnes.
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