Chevron to buy Pasadena refinery from Petrobras for USD350 mln

MOSCOW (MRC) -- Chevron Corp said it would pay USD350 million to buy a refinery in Pasadena, Texas, from Brazilian state oil company Petrobras, confirming a Reuters report.

In addition to the 110,000-barrel-per-day (bpd) refinery, Chevron will take ownership of a 466-acre (188.5 hectares)complex on the Houston Ship Channel that includes storage tanks with capacity for 5.1 million barrels of crude oil and refined products, as well as 143 acres of additional land, the company said.

"This expansion of our Gulf Coast refining system enables Chevron to process more domestic light crude, supply a portion of our retail market in Texas and Louisiana with Chevron-produced products, and realize synergies through coordination with our refinery in Pascagoula," said Pierre Breber, executive vice president of Chevron downstream & chemicals.

Chevron, which reported a 150,000-bpd increase in shale production in the third quarter, has said it wants a second Gulf Coast facility to handle that crude and better supply its retail gasoline network. The Pasadena refinery produces mostly gasoline and distillates such as diesel.

The deal includes all of Petrobras subsidiary Pasadena Refining System Inc, which operates the refinery and tank farm and owns the adjoining property, and PRSI Trading LLC.

Once approved by regulators, the acquisition will become the second Gulf Coast refinery operated by Chevron and its only one in Texas.

Chevron, which reported a 150,000-bpd increase in shale production in the third quarter, has said it wants a second Gulf Coast facility to handle that crude and better supply its retail gasoline network. The plant produces mostly gasoline and distillates such as diesel.

As MRC wrote before, in May 2018, Chevron Products Company, a division of Chevron U.S.A. Inc., and Novvi LLC announced that they had entered into an agreement to jointly develop and bring to market novel renewable base oil technologies.
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MOSCOW (MRC) -- LyondellBasell Industries reported fourth quarter earnings that missed analysts' expectations on Friday and revenue that fell short of forecasts, said the company.

The firm reported earnings per share of USD1.79 on revenue of USD8.88B. Analysts polled by Investing.com forecast EPS of USD2.26 on revenue of USD9.77B. That compared to EPS of USD2.73 on revenue of USD9.14B in the same period a year earlier. The company had reported EPS of USD2.96 on revenue of $10.16B in the previous quarter.

For the year, LyondellBasell Industries shares are up 4.58%, under-performing the S&P 500 which is up 9.58% year to date.

On Thursday, DuPont reported fourth quarter EPS of USD0.88 on revenue of USD20.1B, compared to forecasts of EPS of USD0.87 on revenue of USD20.95B.

Sherwin-Williams earnings missed analyst's expectations on Thursday, with fourth quarter EPS of USD3.54 on revenue of USD4.06B. Investing.com analysts expected EPS of USD3.65 on revenue of USD4.08B


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MOSCOW (MRC) -- Saudi Aramco with its partner Total has announced the signing of a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) with Daelim, a South Korean petrochemical company, as per the company's press release.

Under the MoU, Daelim is planning to build a new 80,000 tons state-of-the-art Polyisobutylene (PIB) plant, which is expected to come on-stream in 2024. This agreement is another step to drive Saudi Aramco’s petrochemicals growth strategy. This follows Saudi Aramco’s announcement in October 2018 to launch an engineering study to build a large petrochemical complex in Jubail.

The launch of the Front-End Engineering and Design (FEED) of the PIB plant will start in February 2019 and will be concluded in Q4 2019. The new petrochemicals facility will be using feedstock from the Amiral complex in Jubail, located on Saudi Arabia’s eastern coast. It is the first time that the PIB product will be developed in the Kingdom.

The facility’s location in Saudi Arabia will give Daelim access to competitive feedstock and energy, with large infrastructure, to better serve customers in the Middle East and markets across Europe and Asia.

This specialty chemical project will be part of the large-scale petrochemical complex of Amiral, located in the value park. It will be using Daelim’s PIB proprietary technology to produce a wide range of products in a single plant, from conventional PIB (CPIB) to highly reactive PIB (HR-PIB).

PIB is a high value-added chemical product and has a wide range of industrial applications such as adhesives, lubricants and fuel additives.

As MRC informed earlier, in October 2018, Saudi Aramco and Total launched engineering studies to build a giant petrochemical complex in Jubail. Announced in April 2018, the world-class complex will be located next to the SATORP refinery, operated by Saudi Aramco (62.5%) and Total (37.5%), in order to fully exploit operational synergies. It will comprise a mixed-feed cracker (50% ethane and refinery off-gases) - the first in the Gulf region to be integrated with a refinery - with a capacity of 1.5 million tons per year of ethylene and related high-added-value petrochemical units. The project represents an investment of around USD5 billion and is scheduled to start-up in 2024.

Saudi Aramco is an integrated oil and chemicals company, a global leader in hydrocarbon production, refining processes and distribution, as well as one of the largest global oil exporters. It manages proven reserves of crude oil and condensate estimated at 261.1bn barrels, and produces 9.54 million bbl daily. Headquartered in Dhahran, Saudi Arabia, the company employs over 61,000 staff in 77 countries.

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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MOSCOW (MRC) -- Cepsa and Cosmo have signed a memorandum of understanding (MOU) to study new business opportunities in the lubricants market, both in Spain and Japan and internationally, as per Hydrocarbonprocessing.

The agreement covers potential synergies in the production of lubricants and coolants, the exchange of technology and formulations, and the search for possible partnerships in the marketing of these products, to increase their efficiency.

The alliance also reflects both companies' interest in reaching an agreement to manufacture and supply lubricants and coolants on behalf of the other company, under the Cepsa or Cosmo trademark.

At the signing of this agreement, Pedro Miro, Chief Executive Officer of Cepsa, said: "This new agreement with Cosmo will allow us to continue sharing experience and technology with one of the most important companies in the energy industry in Asia, to achieve complementary strengths that will grow our various business areas."

For his part, Hiroshi Kiriyama, Chief Executive Officer of Cosmo Energy Holdings, as a witness by signing, emphasized: "On this occasion, it is a great privilege for Cosmo to broaden mutual collaboration through each know-how and technology. The new agreement will also deliver reliabilities and values to our customer. Cepsa has been an indispensable partner for Cosmo in Europe and then the both companies are keen to take on new challenges."

Both companies, which form part of the Mubadala portfolio of companies (Cepsa at 100% and Cosmo Energy Holdings at 20.8%), started analyzing business opportunities in 2014, when they signed an initial agreement focused on studying partnership possibilities in the Exploration and Production business.

This alliance laid the foundations to create the subsidiary Cosmo Abu Dhabi Energy Exploration & Production to operate jointly in the United Arab Emirates. Through this partnership (80% Cosmo Energy Exploration & Production, 20% Cepsa), both companies operate four oil fields in Abu Dhabi: Hail, Mubarraz, Umm Al-Anbar and Neewat Al-Ghalan, located in shallow waters to the west of the Emirate.

As MRC reported before, in May 2018, The Abu Dhabi National Oil Company (ADNOC) announced it had signed a project development agreement with Cepsa of Spain for a new, world-scale Linear Alkylbenzene (LAB) facility in ADNOC’s refining and petrochemicals complex in Ruwais, UAE.
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MOSCOW (MRC) -- DowDuPont reported earnings per share of 88 cents for the fourth quarter of the year. This is an increase over the company’s earnings per share of 83 cents from the same time last year, said the company.

It also matches Wall Street’s earnings per share estimate for the quarter, but wasn’t enough to keep DWDP stock from falling.

Net income reported in the DowDuPont earnings release for the fourth quarter of 2018 came in at USD513 million. This is an improvement over the company’s net loss of USD1.22 billion from the fourth quarter of 2017.

DowDuPont earnings for the fourth quarter of the year also include operating income of USD728 million. The chemical company reported an operating loss of USD2.87 billion in the same period of the year prior.

The most recent DowDuPont earnings report also sees its revenue for the quarter coming in at USD20.10 billion. This is better than its revenue of USD20.07 billion reported in the fourth quarter of the previous year. However, it was bad news for DWDP stock by missing analysts’ revenue estimate of USD20.92 billion for the period.

DowDuPont earnings results for the full year of 2018 were also a bit of a drag for DWDP stock. The company reported earnings per share of $4.11 on revenue of $86.00 billion. Wall Street was looking for earnings per share of USD4.11 on revenue of USD86.78 billion for the year.
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