Tallgrass, Kinder to lift oil transport capacity from Rockies

MOSCOW (MRC) - Tallgrass Energy Partners LP (TGE.N) and Kinder Morgan Inc. (KMI.N) on Tuesday agreed to lift crude transport capacity from Wyoming and Colorado to the US oil storage hub in Cushing, Oklahoma and other markets, said Reuters.

The project would combine Tallgrass’s Pony Express pipeline and portions of Kinder’s Wyoming Interstate Co. and Cheyenne Plains Gas pipeline running from the Powder River and Denver-Julesburg basins to the companies’ Deeprock terminal in Cushing.

The companies also agreed to build an additional 200 mi (322 km) of new pipeline, convert natural gas takeaway capacity to oil and add capacity to the Williston Basin in North Dakota and parts of Western Canada.

The combined system would carry 800,000 bpd of light crude and 150,000 bpd of heavy crude to the terminal, beginning service in the second half of 2020.

From Cushing, shippers could send crude to US Gulf Coast markets through Tallgrass’s planned Seahorse pipeline, the companies said. Tallgrass’s open season on the Seahorse, originally set to conclude on Friday, was extended to Feb. 28 last week.

"Shippers benefit by gaining access to a pipeline system that can source from multiple basins and access numerous demand markets," Tallgrass Chief Operating Officer Bill Moler said in a statement.
MRC

MOSCOW (MRC) -- Shenhua Ningxia Coal Industry Group (SNCG), a subsidiary of Shenhua Group, one of the largest petrochemical producers in China, has brought on-stream its linear low density polyethylene (LLDPE) plant following an unplanned outage, as per Apic-online.

A Polymerupdate source informed that the company has resumed operations at the plant on January 19, 2019. The unit remained off-line for around one week owing to technical issues.

Located at Ningxia province of China, the plant has a production capacity of 450,000 mt/year.

As MRC informed before, on 28 November, 2017, SNCG commissioned new polyethylene (PE) and polypropylene (PP) plants in Ningxia province with the capacity of 450,000 and 550,000, respectively.

Shenhua Ningxia Coal Industry Group Co., Ltd. engages in coal mining and washing, coal deep processing, coal chemical industry, electric power, real estate, and other businesses.
MRC

MOSCOW (MRC) -- Overall polyethylene (PE) imports into Belarus decreased in the first eleven months of 2018 by 11% year on year, reaching 100,100 tonnes. At the same time, local companies reduced purchasing of exclusively linear low density polyethylene (LLDPE), according to MRC's DataScope report.

According to the National Statistics Committee of Belarus, November PE imports to Belarus virtually remained at the level of October and were 8,500 tonnes. Overall PE imports reached 100,100 tonnes in January-November 2018, compared to 112,400 tonnes a year earlier. Demand for LLDPE subsided significantly, whereas demand for high density polyethylene (HDPE) increased.

The structure of PE imports to Belarus by grades looked the following way over the stated period.

November 2018 total LLDPE imports rose to 3,700 tonnes from 3,000 tonnes a month earlier, local companies increased their purchases in Russia on the back of the shutdown for maintenance at the local producer. Overall imports of this PE grade into Belarus totalled 35,200 tonnes in January-November 2018, which virtually corresponded to the last year's figure.

November imports of HDPE dropped to 4,400 tonnes from 5,000 tonnes in the previous month. Local companies reduced their purchasing of pipe grade PE in Saudi Arabia. Thus, overall HDPE imports totalled 50,400 tonnes in the first eleven months of 2018, up by 10.2% year on year. Overall LLDPE imports reached 13,600 tonnes over the stated period, whereas this figure was 31,600 tonnes a year earlier.

MRC

MOSCOW (MRC) - India's Reliance Industries on Thursday posted record quarterly profit driven by its telecoms, retail and petrochemicals businesses, which offset the impact of a weaker refining margins due to volatile crude prices, as per Reuters.

The results saw the conglomerate making progress in its drive, announced last year, to make its consumer businesses eventually as large as its core energy operations, which are also struggling with slowing growth in China. "Consumer business now contributes more than 25 percent of the EBITDA (earnings before interest, tax, depreciation and profit)," V Srikanth, joint chief financial officer said, referring to the telecoms and retail businesses.

The businesses contributed around 12 percent to EBITDA in 2017. Net profit on a consolidated basis rose to 102.5 billion rupees (USD1.44 billion) in October-December, beating analysts' average estimate of 96.48 billion rupees, according to Refinitiv Eikon data.

Consolidated revenue grew 56.4 percent to 1.60 trillion rupees. Gross refining margin (GRM) - the profit earned on each barrel of crude processed - was USD8.8 per barrel for the quarter, the lowest for 16 quarters but outperforming the benchmark Singapore complex margin by USD4.5 per barrel.

Operating profit from refining fell 18 percent year-on-year, despite a 47 percent jump in revenues from that business. Srikanth said that while there would be short-term weakness in refining, the company could cope due to its ability to process a wide variety of crudes and a diversified business portfolio.

Reliance's refinery in the western state of Gujarat is the world's biggest single-location refinery, with a capacity to process 1.36 million barrels per day of crude.

The telecoms business is central to the ambition of Chairman Mukesh Ambani, Asia's richest man, to boost the company's consumer operations. In the last two years, Reliance's telecoms start-up Jio has used cut-price data and free voice calls to corner over 250 million subscribers, leaving rivals nursing losses.

Jio posted a nearly 65 percent jump in quarterly profit to 8.31 billion rupees (USD117 million). The company said last month it would hive off its tower and fibre assets, a move that could help sell or list the assets in future.

"We're in the process of de-merging our tower and fibre business and the end objective will be to have different set of investors who would want to run these companies," said Srikanth.

"This means that these assets go off our balance sheets so the liabilities also go down," he added. Reliance's outstanding debt in the end of December was around USD40 billion, while cash and cash equivalents was USD11 billion.
MRC

MOSCOW (MRC) -- Celanese Corporation, a global specialty materials company, has announced legal veteran A. Lynne Puckett will join the company's executive leadership team as Senior Vice President and General Counsel, effective February 13, 2019, as per the company's press release.

Formerly General Counsel at global manufacturer Colfax Corporation, Lynne brings deep experience leading a sizable global legal team through complex acquisitions, growth in emerging markets, corporate and securities matters, debt and equity offerings, and more.

"Lynne's extensive experience and her leadership approach make her a valuable addition to our Celanese team," said Mark Rohr, Celanese Chairman and Chief Executive Officer. "Her balance of strategic insights coupled with execution excellence will complement our legal team nicely. Her orientation toward volunteerism echoes our own corporate value of making a positive impact on our communities and reinforces our culture."

Lynne joins Celanese with more than eight years at Colfax Corporation where she was Senior Vice President, General Counsel and Secretary. In her time at Colfax, she guided the Board, leadership and employees through significant company growth from USD700 million in revenues in 2010 to more than USD3.6 billion currently. Prior to Colfax, Lynne was a partner with the Hogan Lovells law firm where she managed complex mergers and acquisitions and represented public and private companies. She holds a J.D. from the University of Maryland School of Law and a B.S. degree from James Madison University. She has served nonprofits including the American Shakespeare Center, the University of Maryland Greenebaum Cancer Center, the Baltimore Outreach Services and the Center for Refugee and Disaster Response at the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health.

As wrote before, Celanese Corporation has raised prices for its GUR and GHR grades (UHMW-PE) to be shipped starting from January to Europe, the Americas and Asia. The price increases below is effective for orders shipped on or after 1 January, 2019, or as contracts otherwise allow, as follows:

- in Europe - by EUR150/tonne;
- in Asia - by USD150/tonne;
- in North and South America - by 10%.

Celanese Corporation is a global technology leader in the production of differentiated chemistry solutions and specialty materials used in most major industries and consumer applications. Based in Dallas, Celanese employs approximately 7,600 employees worldwide and had 2017 net sales of USD6.1 billion.