Egyptian Carbon Holdings secures USD1.25 bln to build petrochemicals complex

MOSCOW (MRC) -- Egypt’s Carbon Holdings has secured USD1.25 billion in financing to build a giant petrochemicals complex in the Red Sea port of Ain Sokhna, reported Reuters.

The Tahrir Petrochemicals Complex, a USD10.9 billion project, would be the largest in the Middle East and is expected to create 48,000 jobs.

Carbon signed the financing contract with Africa Finance Corporation (AFC), a Lagos-based development financier, on the sidelines of an Africa business forum in the resort of Sharm al-Sheikh, the Egyptian cabinet said in a statement on Sunday.

The statement cited Carbon Holdings CEO Basil El-Baz as saying the company had signed several financing agreements worth USD5.4 billion.

Sanjeev Gupta, AFC executive director for financial services, was quoted in the statement as saying: "We are proud of our partnership with Tahrir Petrochemicals Complex which will be a major breakthrough in one of the most important petrochemical industries in the region."

Carbon, a private company, signed the contract to build the complex in June. Work is expected to begin in the first quarter of 2019.

El-Baz told Reuters last year he saw the project helping to double Egypt’s exports within one year of coming online.

Tahrir will have to export all its production in the first year but as output increases, domestic manufacturers will be encouraged to expand and foreign ones will consider setting up next to the Suez Canal, he had said.

Carbon Holdings already has a polypropylene plant and a mining grade ammonium nitrate plant.

The government says the 460-square-km economic zone around the canal will be used to develop an international industrial and logistics hub to attract foreign investment.

The Tahrir Petrochemicals Complex, which is being funded by credit agencies in the United States, Britain and Germany, is Egypt’s first naphtha cracker and will produce different types of petrochemicals used to make various consumer and industrial goods.

Egypt aims to step up exports and reduce imports to revive the economy, which was hit by unrest that followed the 2011 popular uprising.

As MRC informed before, in February 2015, CB&I was awarded a contract by Carbon Holdings for the license and engineering design of a polypropylene (PP) unit to be built in Ain Sokhna, Egypt. The unit will be aligned to the Tahrir petrochemical complex and use CB&I's Novolen technology to produce 350,000 tpy of polypropylene.
MRC

Duqm Refinery celebrates financial close

MOSCOW (MRC) -- Duqm Refinery announced its project’s financial close at a gala dinner held at the Intercontinental Hotel, Muscat, said Hydrocarbonprocessing.

Achieving a multi-source project financing for the Duqm Refinery project was a major milestone for the project. Speaking on the occasion, the President of Kuwait Petroleum International and Chairman of Duqm Refinery, Mr. Nabil Bourisli, said: This achievement reflects the strength and stability of the Omani and Kuwaiti economies. It also reflects the trust and confidence of local, regional and international financial institutions in our economic ties that are deeply rooted in history. He added, “Our Vision is aiming at maximizing the value of our natural resources and driving the two countries toward expanding their economic potential that leads to balanced economic growth."

Eng. Hilal Al Kharusi, Vice Chairman of Board of Directors of Duqm Refinery commented on the occasion: "this is indeed a very important milestone for the project. It reflects the trust that financial institutions have placed in the project which with no doubt will be one of the key economic drivers for SEZAD. He further added “Setting up Duqm Refinery and Petrochemical Industries Company is an important milestone for petrochemical industries and key to establishing new downstream industries and the creation of job opportunities."

Eng. Khalid Al Mushaileh, vice president of Kuwait Petroleum International stated “Kuwaiti banks were effectively involved in financing the project achieving 32% of the total loan amount. This is driven by the importance of the project as well as the strategic partnership between the two brotherly countries. He added, “this project is in line with Kuwait Petroleum Corporation 2040 strategy and it is at the same time a great opportunity to involve skilled Kuwaiti workforce to be part of these external investments".

"The USD4.6 Billion multi-sourced financing signed for the Project is not only the largest project financing in the Sultanate of Oman, it also includes the largest sharia compliant facility awarded to a green field project in the country provided by a consortium of Islamic financing institutions” said Mubarak Al Naamany, Chief Financial Officer of Duqm Refinery. He further stated “facilities have been provided by 29 reputed financial institutions from 13 countries and guarantees from 3 major ECAs. He concluded that achieving a Debt to Equity ratio of 55% with uncovered facilities of 70% of total debt, is a testament of confidence placed by international, regional, and local lenders on the Sultanate of Oman, the shareholders, and the project".

The USD 4.6 Billion senior debt facilities comprise of seven agreements that includes (i) a US$ 1.43 bn International Commercial Facility, (ii) a US$ 490 million Onshore Commercial Facility, (iii) a US$ 890 million Islamic Facility, (iv) a US$ 700 million UKEF Covered Facility, (v) a US$ 500 million CESCE Covered Facility, (vi) a US$ 600 million K-EXIM Covered and K-EXIM Direct Facilities. Regional banks have played a big role in this deal with funding from Kuwaiti and Omani banks representing 43% of total debt.
MRC

Nestle Waters says it will achieve 25 per cent recycled plastic use by 2021

MOSCOW (MRC) -- With the help of what it calls a key Canadian supplier, beverage maker Nestle Waters North America has announced that it will achieve 25 per cent recycled plastic across its U.S. domestic portfolio by 2021, as per Canplastics.

Stamford, Conn.-based Nestle Waters also plans to continue expanding its use of recycled materials in the coming years, further setting an ambition to reach 50 per cent recycled plastic by 2025.

The company is expanding its relationship with supplier Plastrec Inc., of Joliette, Que., and also working with other suppliers in order to nearly quadruple its use of food-grade recycled plastic, or rPET, in less than three years. Founded in 1992, Plastrec produces rPET resin from post-consumer containers. On its website, Plastrec says it buys approximately 2 billion PET containers annually from different municipal programs in Quebec, Ontario, and the U.S.

Nestle Waters’ latest announcement comes on the heels of its announcement last month about the expansion of its partnership with CarbonLITE, as the rPET supplier builds a third U.S. facility in the Lehigh Valley area of Pennsylvania.

"We want to take the ‘single’ out of ‘single-use’ bottles. Our bottles were never meant to be thrown in the garbage – we carefully design them to be collected, recycled, and repurposed,” Fernando Merce, president and CEO of Nestle Waters North America, said in a statement. “PET plastic is a valuable resource that, if recycled properly, can be used to create new bottles again and again. We’re proving that it can be done by making bottles out of other bottles, not ten years from now, but today."
MRC

DS Smith to divest plastics division

MOSCOW (MRC) -- London-based packaging firm DS Smith plc has announced plans to sell its plastics division and is now "exploring opportunities.", as per Plasticsnews.

In its half-year financial statement Dec. 6, the company said following an initial review it had concluded that the business was “an attractive asset with good growth prospect." With ?327 million ($416.6 million) in sales in the fiscal year ended April 30, the business accounts for 5 percent overall sales of the total group, according to Greg Dawson, director of corporate affairs.

The company launched a strategic review of the business in June, through which it generated “a significant amount of interest,” Dawson told Plastics News Europe on Dec. 7. The business has been valued by the market at around ?500 million ($637 million), but Dawson declined to comment.

The company treated the division as “discontinued” in its half-year financial report, covering the six months to end of October, but according to Dawson that did not mean that a sales process had begun. “We are currently studying all the options and I can tell you that there have been a lot interested parties,” Dawson added.

DS Smith manufactures a range of flexible, rigid, foam and injection molded packaging solutions and claims to be the world leader in flexible liquid packaging and dispensing solutions for bag-in-box, with its Rapak brand.

The company has 11 flexible packaging production plants and 15 rigid packaging manufacturing sites globally, including the United States.
MRC

Total offers 3.1% compensation increase, bonus to employees in France

MOSCOW (MRC) -- French oil and gas major Total SA has offered a 3.1 percent increase in compensation plus an exceptional 1,500-euro bonus to all employees in France, reported Reuters with reference to Chairman and Chief Executive Officer Patrick Pouyanne said.

Pouyanne said on Twitter that the offer was made to unions, taking into account the company’s good results in 2018.

Total held its annual salary negotiation with unions on Tuesday.

Around 32 percent of the company’s 98,000 employees were in France as of the end of December 2017, according to company documents.

The increase and bonus measure comes after a week-long strike in November over pay and bonuses by hard-left union CGT. The protest disrupted production and distribution at Total’s refineries and fuel depots in France.

French President Emmanuel Macron on Monday urged companies that are able to do so to offer an exceptional bonus to their employees to boost purchasing power, as part of measures to appease the so-called yellow vests protests that have rocked France in the past weeks.

Several French companies including media and telecom groups Orange, Publicis, Iliad and Altice announced employee bonuses on Tuesday, while bosses of major banks agreed to freeze the fees they charge households next year in a show of support for Macron’s plan.

As MRC informed before, in December 2017, Total inaugurated the new units at its Antwerp integrated refining & petrochemicals platform, which have 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.
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