Italian private equity fund completes divestment of Treofan

MOSCOW (MRC) -- Milan-based private equity firm M&C SpA has completely divested its bi-oriented polypropylene (BOPP) films business with the sale of German films manufacturer Treofan Holdings GmbH to a company part of the Indian BC Jindal Group, as per Plasticsnewseurope.

Speaking to PNE, an M&C spokesman refused to disclose the name of the Jindal business that had acquired the European operations of Treofan, which was the only Treofan business remaining under the control of M&C.

In a 6 Aug statement, M&C, which currently holds 98.75% of Treofan shares said the purchase price could range between EUR500,000 to EUR4.8m.

The final price, said the company, shall be determined before the closing of the transaction, which is expected to be in the first quarter of 2019.

Based in Raunheim, Germany, Treofan Holdings had sales of EUR271.8m and negative EBITDA of EUR3.6m last year.

The company produces 120,000 tonnes per annum of films at three production plants in Germany and Italy.

The transaction follows the sale of Treofan Americas to Canadian label manufacturer CLL Industries in June this year.

M&C announced in 2017 that it was divesting Treofan Americas business in order to proceed with the reorganisation of the company’s European business and reduce its debts.

In its statement today, M&C said the reorganisation had become increasingly challenging on a “standalone” basis and without cooperation with another strategic player in the BOPP industry.

M&C said part of the reason for the divestment was the “current market conditions, which strongly call for further economies of scale."

The Italian private equity firm expects that as a result of the disposal, it would not be in a position to recover the entire current book value of the interests held in Treofan Holdings.

The company said it could not therefore confirm the value to be realised through the transaction and the potential loss arising from the disposal of the investment in Treofan Holdings.

As one of India's leading business conglomerates, the BC Jindal Group manufactures, amongst others, polyester and BOPP films through its Jindal Films operations. Headquartered in New Delhi, the films business has production sites in Italy, the Netherlands, the US, India and Belgium.
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MOSCOW (MRC) -- Honeywell Process Solutions (HPS), a pioneer in automation control, instrumentation, and services, has entered into a reseller agreement with the Software Products division of Applied Engineering Solutions, Inc., as per Hydrocarbonprocessing.

Through the reseller agreement, aeShield® is integrated into Honeywell’s new Process Safety Suite.

This integration pairs the HAZOP/LOPA, SRS, and SIL Verification requirements from aeShield with Honeywell’s Safety Builder, Process Safety Analyzer, and Trace into a Process Safety Suite. This comprehensive suite will provide unprecedented visibility throughout the process safety lifecycle.

"Our aeShield team is extremely excited to partner with Honeywell," said Mike Scott, President of Software Products at aeSolutions. “Significant synergies between aeShield and existing Honeywell technologies offer a new and revolutionary way to manage process safety information. Connecting design assumptions to real-time operating data provide the opportunity to view process safety as a profit center and proactively removes risk to the business."

"The aeShield and Honeywell technologies work together to integrate critical steps in the process safety lifecycle,” said John Rudolph, President of HPS. “The result is an enterprise-wide risk identification and reduction capability that is unique in the industrial process safety market."
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MOSCOW (MRC) -- Honeywell has announced that the Indian Oil Corporation Ltd. (IOCL) has chosen Honeywell UOP’s Pressure Swing Adsorption (PSA) technology to supply high-quality hydrogenat five of its refineries, as per Hydrocarbonprocessing.

Hydrogen is essential to the refining process, where it is used to decontaminate oil and facilitate catalytic processes that produce clean-burning fuels, including those that meet the Indian government’s strict Bharat Stage VI (BS-VI) environmental standards.

Under the terms of the agreement, Honeywell UOP will provide new PSA units to IOCL refineries at Gujarat, Panipat, and Mathura, and will upgrade existing hydrogen plants with UOP’s Polybed PSA technology at refineries in Haldia, Guwahati and Gujarat. Together, the six projects will generate 166,000 tons per year of new hydrogencapacity, representing an almost 30 percent increase for IOCL.

"Honeywell UOP’s hydrogen technology is part of IOCL’s efforts to produce BS-VI fuels before the end of 2019," said Mike Banach, regional general manager for Honeywell UOP India. "This is a project of national importance to help India reduce pollution and improve its quality of life."

IOCL chose Honeywell UOP technology due to its performance, superior economics and ability to meet an aggressive delivery schedule driven by India’s BS-VI emissions standards. UOP PSA technology features new UOP adsorbents that recover high levels of hydrogen. The project includes a substantial amount of Indian-made components and domestic fabrication, in line with the government’s "Make in India" program.

When the project is completed, the additional hydrogen produced each year will have a value to IOCL of about USD400 million.

"Hydrogen is as essential to refining as oil, and it’s generated on-purpose and as a byproduct of refining processes," Banach said. "The PSA technology recovers and purifies this hydrogen so it can be used elsewhere in the refinery to remove impurities and to perform catalytic processes that transform crude oil into clean fuels and other products."

Indian Oil Corporation Ltd., together with its subsidiaries, has interests across the entire hydrocarbon value-chain, including refining, pipeline transportation, marketing of petroleum products, exploration and production of crude oil, natural gas, and petrochemicals. The company was founded in 1959 and is based in New Delhi, India.

As MRC informed before, last year, IOCL conducted maintenance at its polypropylene (PP) plant at Panipat refinery in northern India from early July to mid-August.

Indian Oil Corporation Limited, or IndianOil, is an Indian state-owned oil and gas corporation with its headquarters in New Delhi, India.
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MOSCOW (MRC) - HollyFrontier Corp said it did not expect operational disruptions at its 85,000-barrel-per-day (bpd) Tulsa West refinery in Tulsa, Oklahoma, after a fire in a wastewater plant was put out on Wednesday afternoon, as per Hydrocarbonprocessing.

"Our employees and contractors are accounted for and safe,” said HollyFrontier spokesman Craig Biery. “No injuries were reported and we do not anticipate operational disruptions."

The company said the fire broke out at about 1:10 pm local time (1810 GMT) on Wednesday. Firefighters from the refinery put out the blaze.

HollyFrontier has two refineries in Tulsa. The Tulsa East plant has a capacity of 70,300 bpd, according to the U.S. Energy Information Administration.

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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.
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