Brazilian antitrust watchdog may force Petrobras to sell refineries

MOSCOW (MRC) -- Brazilian antitrust watchdog Cade will begin on an investigation that may result in mandatory sales of refineries by state-controlled oil company Petroleo Brasileiro SA, reported Reuters with reference to newspaper Valor Economico.

According to the paper, Cade is analyzing the influence of Petrobras on fuel prices. The company controls almost 100 percent of refining in the country. Cade and Petrobras did not immediately comment on the matter.

Petrobras has proposed earlier this year to sell a 60 percent stake in four refineries. But a truckers strike that pressured the company’s pricing policies spooked buyers, and a decision by Supreme Court Justice Ricardo Lewandowski forced the company to halt the sale process.

As MRC wrote previously, in October 2017, Petrobras’s minority stakes in Braskem and Deten Quimica was excluded from Petrobras’s divestment program, according to a government decree published in Brazil’s Official Gazette. The decree prevented Petrobras from immediately selling its minority stake in Braskem, which had been announced last year. A new decree will be required to release the stock sale.

Headquartered in Rio de Janeiro, Petrobras is an integrated energy firm. Petrobras' activities include exploration, exploitation and production of oil from reservoir wells, shale and other rocks as well as refining, processing, trade and transport of oil and oil products, natural gas and other fluid hydrocarbons, in addition to other energy-related activities.
MRC

MOSCOW (MRC) -- Shandong Haili Chemical Industry has restarted its acrylonitrile-butadiene-styrene (ABS) plant, according to Apic-online.

A Polymerupdate source in China informed that the company has resumed operations at the unit on November 30, 2018 following an unplanned outage. The plant was shut on November 5, 2018 owing to technical issues.

Located at Shandong, China, the plant has a production capacity of 200,000 mt/year.

We remind that, as MRC wrote before, Russian petrochemicals group Nizhnekamskneftekhim, one of Russia’s largest petrochemical producers, formally commissioned its EUR100m 60,000 tpa ABS polymer plant in Nizhnekamsk in April 2013.
MRC

MOSCOW (MRC) -- Poland’s biggest oil refiner PKN Orlen will receive a shipment of 130,000 tonnes of crude from Angola in February 2019 as part of a wider plan to reduce reliance on Russian supplies, said Hydrocarbonprocessing.

In October, PKN Orlen receive its first ever shipment of Nigerian crude oil.

As MRC informed earlier, PKN Orlen S.A. informs that on 30 November 2018 it submitted to the European Commission a draft notification for concentration ("Notification"), together with the draft outline of remedies areas, regarding the planned taking capital control over Grupa Lotos S.A. headquartered in Gdansk ("Grupa Lotos") by PKN Orlen S.A. ("Transaction"). Notification, submitted today by the Company, initiates the process of the arrangement of its final version with the European Commission. After submitting the final notification by the Company, the European Commission will formally start the concentration investigation.
MRC

MOSCOW (MRC) -- BP Plc began restarting the blending oil unit at its 413,500 barrel-per-day (bpd) Whiting, Indiana, refinery on Tuesday, reported Reuters with reference to sources familiar with plant operations.

BP shut the unit that blends lower-quality crude grades with higher-quality grades on Nov. 27 for maintenance, the sources said.

As MRC reported before, British oil and gas company BP will increase investment in the United States after the lowering of tax rates under President Donald Trump, Chief Executive Bob Dudley said in early February, 2018.

BP is one of the world's leading international oil and gas companies, providing its customers with fuel for transportation, energy for heat and light, retail services and petrochemicals products for everyday items.
MRC

MOSCOW (MRC) - With supply from major producer Iran uncertain, big condensate user South Korea is scouring the world for alternative sources of this key ingredient in its large chemical industry to avert shortages - a process that is proving to be costly for buyers, said Hydrocarbonprocessing.

Condensate, a type of ultra-light crude oil, is a feedstock for South Korea’s petrochemical industry. A by-product of natural gas production, Iran and Qatar are major condensate suppliers. But Iran’s exports have fallen sharply this year as production in its South Pars gas field struggles to keep up with rising domestic demand while renewed U.S. sanctions on Iran’s petroleum industry crimp exports.

With Iranian condensate in the past years making up more than half of Korea’s overall supply, the shortfall is forcing Korean buyers to seek alternative supplies.

SK Incheon Petrochem, a unit of SK Innovation, Hyundai Chemical, a subsidiary of Hyundai Oilbank Corp and Hanwha Total Petrochemicals Corp (HTC) are South Korea’s biggest condensate buyers.

“There is huge uncertainty over sanctions, and we can’t build a strategy with huge uncertainty in volume,” said Sebastien Bariller, senior vice president of feedstock purchasing, energy and optimization at HTC.

Even if the United States extends waivers on sanctions, South Korea is bound by Washington’s condition to continue to reduce Iranian oil imports, said Kim Jae-kyung, research fellow at the Korean Energy Economics Institute (KEEI).

“South Korea needs to look for other sources,” he said. Bariller said 2018 had been “very special and difficult” because there were “no more supplies from Iran” since the middle of the year. HTC had bought condensate from “nearly all alternative origins,” he said.

The U.S. sanctions and rising domestic demand could cap Iran’s South Pars condensate exports at 100,000-200,000 barrels per day (bpd) in 2019-2020, down from 400,000-500,000 bpd in 2017, according to consultancy FGE.
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