Rehau completes acquisition of MB Barter & Trading

MOSCOW (MRC) -- Rehau GmbH, a family-owned supplier of polymer-based solutions to the construction and automotive industries headquartered in Muri, Switzerland, has completed its acquisition of MB Barter & Trading AG, as per Canplastics.

First announced in September, the transaction includes Rehau GmbH in Muri bei Bern, Switzerland, as well as the worldwide subsidiaries of the MB Barter & Trading Group. The terms of the deal have not been disclosed.

MB Barter was a global distributor of commodity polymers, PET, and rubber globally. The company has 30 offices worldwide.

"The successful completion of this transaction is an important milestone in the implementation of our vision to grow as a leading provider of polymer solutions and to further expand our business relationships,” said Dr. Stefan Girschik, CEO of the new company.

Rehau GmbH and its subsidiaries will gradually merge their businesses with the acquired MBT companies. A joint market launch under a new name is planned for the first half of 2019.
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Magna opens mechatronics center in China

MOSCOW (MRC) -- In a move to capitalize on the growing mechatronics boom, automotive parts maker Magna International Inc. has opened a new mechatronics engineering center in Suzhou in the Jiangsu Province, China, as per Canplastics.

Also called mechatronic engineering, mechatronics is a multidisciplinary branch of engineering that focuses on the engineering of both electrical and mechanical systems, and also includes a combination of robotics, electronics, computer, telecommunications, systems, control, and product engineering. Mechatronics products, such as power doors and liftgates, work through a combination of mechanical systems, electronic control units and embedded software.

The Magna Mechatronics Engineering Center will focus on designing and developing the company’s mechatronic product offerings for the China market as well as globally, including its SmartAccess power door. The center will hire more than 100 new engineers, including specialists in the development of software and hardware. These new hires will join the current staff of 110 engineers, who are moving from Magna’s previous engineering center located in Kunshan.

"Our mechatronic products fuse the capabilities of mechanical systems with the intelligence of electronics controls to enable new ways of interacting with your vehicle," said John O’Hara, president of Magna Mechatronics, Mirrors and Lighting.

Magna is headquartered in Aurora, Ont.
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Russian oil refinery gets Sberbank credit line, resumes loadings

MOSCOW (MRC) -- Oil loadings have resumed at Russia’s Afipsky refinery, pipeline monopoly Transneft said on Friday, after top lender Sberbank provided a credit line to the Afipsky and Antipinsky refineries, reported Reuters.

Transneft also said it expected to resume loadings to the Antipinsky refinery soon, Interfax news agency reported.

Sberbank said on Friday that it had provided additional credit lines to the refineries to support production, allowing them to fully resume activity. It did not reveal the terms of the credit lines.

As MRC informed before, Russia’s Afipsky, a mid-sized private oil refiner, suspended oil refining to carry out maintenance of its two crude units from Oct. 6-17, 2018.

Afipsky Oil Refinery Ltd. produces gas, diesel fuel, and fuel oil. Afipsky Oil Refinery Ltd. was formerly known as Afipsky Oil Refinery and changed its name to Afipsky Oil Refinery Ltd. in January 2002. The company was founded in 1975 and is based in Seversk, Russia. As of June 29, 2010, Afipsky Oil Refinery Ltd. operates as a subsidiary of OOO NefteGazIndustria.
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Croatian INA to stop processing at biggest refinery for Q1 maintenance

MOSCOW (MRC) -- Croatian energy group INA’s biggest refinery, located in the northern Adriatic port of Rijeka, will undergo a planned maintenance from January to mid-April next year, reported Reuters with reference to the company.

"It is a planned maintenance of the refinery’s processing units which will be halted from Dec, 25, 2018," its spokesperson said.

The plant has a capacity of 100,000 barrels per day (bpd).

INA also owns a smaller refinery with a capacity of 60,000 bpd located in the central town of Sisak.

While a modernization of the Rijeka refinery is tentatively planned, the future of the Sisak refinery is uncertain and it may eventually be converted into a logistics center or some other facility.

In a recent interview with the local Jutarnji List daily, INA’s Chief Executive Sandor Fasimon said the combined capacity of the refineries was 6.7 million tons a year, while currently, the market demand is around 4.0 million tons.

INA is owned by MOL, which has a stake of 49.1 percent, and the Croatian government with 44.8 percent. The remaining stock is controlled by private and institutional investors.

The two big shareholders have been at odds for years over management rights and investment policy. Zagreb has said it wants to buy back INA shares from MOL, but a price has yet to be negotiated.

As MRC informed before, MOL took an ethylene steam cracker off-stream for a turnaround in mid-September, 2018. The cracker remained shut for about one month. Located in Tiszaujvaros, Hungary, the cracker has an ethylene capacity of 290,000 mt/year, propylene capacity of 155,000 mt/year and butadiene capacity of 130,000 mt/year.
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Scale of theft at Shell Singapore refinery much greater, court documents show

MOSCOW (MRC) -- Around USD150 millions’ worth of oil was stolen from Shell’s biggest global refinery over several years, Singapore court documents reviewed by Reuters show, far more than reported when police first revealed the heist earlier this year.

Almost a year on from raids that led to over a dozen arrests, including of several former employees of the local unit of Royal Dutch Shell, charge sheets state that around 340,000 tonnes of gasoil were stolen from the oil major’s Pulau Bukom site in Singapore, in incidents dating back to 2014.

Charges filed in the first few months of investigations after police raids in January related to the theft of around $10 million in oil. Further charges levied in May showed a total of USD40 million had been stolen.

A spokeswoman for Shell said the firm is “disappointed”, adding that it has been working with investigators and taken measures to avoid repeat incidents at the Pulau Bukom facility, which lies just south of Singapore’s main island.

"These include closer monitoring of products moving in and out of Bukom, tightening vessel management procedures, and stepping up ethics and compliance training," the spokeswoman said in an emailed statement to Reuters on Thursday.

Southeast Asia is a hot spot for illegal fuel trading, with its island-dotted waters providing cover for small-scale smuggling of oil products across borders. But the regularity and audacity of the thefts at Shell’s refining facility - some of which took place during working hours - stand out.

"Fuel is both ubiquitous and untraceable, making its theft a seemingly low-risk criminal operation compared to something like drug smuggling or arms trafficking, where the concern about being caught is much higher," said Ian Ralby, a maritime crime expert who works with both the U.N. and the US-based think tank Atlantic Council.

"That false sense of security leads to some fairly brazen forms of theft."

Fuel theft could be worth USD133 billion a year globally, according to industry estimates, although Ralby said that figure might be conservative.

The case in Singapore looks like it could drag on, given the routine addition of new charges and amendments to older charges. The police investigation is still ongoing.

Ho Lifen, a lawyer at Rajah & Tann representing one of the accused former Shell employees, Cai Zhi Zhong, said the charges were being amalgamated. "It’s quite far from final sentencing," she said.

Besides the former Shell employees, there have been related charges filed against former employees of one of Singapore’s biggest marine fuel suppliers, Sentek Marine & Trading Pte Ltd; a Singaporean who worked for Intertek, a British-listed company specializing in quality and quantity assurance, including for fuel products; and three Vietnamese nationals who allegedly received stolen property aboard ships.

As MRC wrote before, Shell Singapore shut down its mixed feed steam cracker in Bukom on 13 August, 2018, following a burst water pipeline Monday. The steam cracker is able to produce 960,000 mt/year of ethylene, 540,000 mt/year of propylene and 155,000 mt/year of butadiene. The refinery also produces 230,000 mt/year of benzene. The sources said then that Shell was forced to shut down two boilers out of four following a burst pipeline.

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.
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