Celanese raises February VAM prices in Asia outside China

MOSCOW (MRC) -- Celanese Corporation, a global chemical and specialty materials company, has raised its February list and off-list selling prices for Vinyl Acetate Monomer (VAM) sold in Asia Outside China (AOC), as per the company's press release.

The price increase below is effective as of 31 January, or as contracts otherwise allow, and is incremental to any previously announced increases.

Thus, Celanese raised VAM list and off-list selling prices by USD50/mt for AOC.

As MRC reported earlier, Celanese last increased its prices for VAM sold in Asia on 21 December, 2018, as follows:

- by USD50/mt for AOC.

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.
MRC

MOSCOW (MRC) -- Weak seasonal demand and oversupply became the main reason for the reduction of low density polyethylene (LDPE) prices in the Russian market. The key suppliers announced a price cut of Rb2,000-4,000/tonne for February shipments, according to ICIS-MRC Price report.

January was short due to the long New Year holidays, moreover, demand for LDPE is always very weak in the first months of the year due to a number of factors. Despite these factors, supply of polyethylene (PE) was excessive from some producers. And weak demand from the key export markets did not allow to get rid of oversupply of LDPE in the Russian market. As a result, many sellers announced price reductions for February shipments.

PE for the production of thick films (108 grade LDPE) accounted for the weakest demand in January, offer prices of this LDPE grade had reached Rb85,500-87,000/tonne, CPT Moscow, including VAT, by February. At the same time, the company's customers said Angarsk Polymers Plant intends to reduce its output of 108 grade LDPE by one third year on year this year.

Demand for 158 grade PE was slightly stronger last month than that for 108 grade LDPE. In addition, there were temporary disruptions in Kazanorgsintez's PE shipments. Offer prices for February deliveries of 158 grade LDPE were heard in a rather wide range, as follows: Rb91,500-96,400 CPT Moscow, including VAT.
MRC

MOSCOW (MRC) -- Negotiations over February shipments of suspension polyvinyl chloride (SPVC) began in the Russian market in the early last week. Expectedly producers announced a further increase of prices for supplies to the domestic market, according to ICIS-MRC Price Report.

SPVC prices in the Russian market reached their minimum last December, and prices has resumed rising since January despite weak demand. Demand for PVC improved in the Russian market in February, while there was still no import alternative. Therefore Russian producers announced price increase of Rb1,000 - 1,500/tonne for February shipments.

A month earlier, Russian producers raised the contract prices of SPVC by Rb1,200 - 1,500/tonne or January deliveries, which was mainly due to the increase in the VAT rate from 2019 by 2%. At the same time, despite the long New Year holidays and preventive downtime of a number of converters, some producers sold all their January quotas in the first week of sales.

Local producers significantly cut export prices of acetylene PVC in the end of December - January, in some cases, price offers for container shipments of acetylene PVC reached USD785/tonne, DAP Moscow. But even this level did not become attractive for Russian companies, the volume of imports is still insignificant.

Russian producers keep a fairly high level of capacity utilisation despite the low season in the domestic market.
Manufacturers supply excess PVC to foreign markets, particularly to India. The Indian market in the last few months shows a steady increase in demand and prices, which accordingly affects the export prices of Russian producers.

All these factors, the lack of an import alternative, good export volumes and a high level of prices in foreign markets, led to a further rise in the price of PVC in the Russian market. Overall, February deals for K64/67 PVC were negotiated in the range of Rb73,000 - 75,500/tonne CPT Moscow, including VAT, up Rb1,000-1,500/tonne from the January level. Deals for K70 PVC were discussed up by Rb1,500/tonne.
MRC

MOSCOW (MRC) -- A 1 million b/d crude pipeline that would transport Permian Basin crude to the US Gulf Coast received the formal go-ahead from its backers and is expected online in the first half of 2021, according to a statement released Wednesday by partners ExxonMobil, Plains All American and Lotus Midstream, as per S&P Global.

"The new common-carrier pipeline system will provide more than 1 million b/d of crude oil and condensate capacity and will be constructed from the Permian Basin in West Texas to the Texas Gulf Coast," they said.

Plains, ExxonMobil and Lotus Midstream formed the Wink to Webster Pipeline LLC Joint Venture and have already ordered nearly 650 miles of domestically sourced 36-inch-diameter line pipe. Plains will be the operator of the line during the construction phase.

The pipeline announcement was expected after ExxonMobil on Tuesday confirmed it was beginning construction at its 365,644 b/d Beaumont, Texas, refinery of a 250,000 b/d crude unit to run the light, sweet oil produced from its holdings in the Permian Basin, which would provide shipping commitments substantial enough to make the pipeline commercially viable.

The pipeline will have origin points at Wink and Midland, Texas, and multiple destination points in the Houston area including Webster and Baytown, where ExxonMobil is currently expanding light sweet crude processing capacity at the 560,500 b/d refinery by about 60,000 b/d.

Pipeline connectivity will also be provided to Texas City and Beaumont, the project's backers said.

As MRC wrote before, in October 2017, ExxonMobil Chemical commenced production on the first of two new 650,000 tons-per-year high-performance polyethylene (PE) lines at its plastics plant in Mont Belvieu, Texas. The full project, part of the company’s multi-billion dollar expansion project in the Baytown area and ExxonMobil’s broader Growing the Gulf expansion initiative, will increase the plant’s PE capacity by approximately 1.3 million tons per year. The Mont Belvieu plant capacity will total more than 2.5 million tons per year, making it one of the largest polyethylene plants in the world. These performance polyethylene products will deliver significant sustainability benefits enabling lighter weight higher performance packaging, lower energy consumption and reduced emissions.

ExxonMobil is the largest non-government owned company in the energy industry and produces about 3% of the world's oil and about 2% of the world's energy.
MRC

MOSCOW (MRC) -- Nouryon (formerly AkzoNobel Specialty Chemicals) will license its innovative continuous initiator dosing (CiD) technology to Karpatnaftochim, Ukraine’s largest polyvinyl chloride (PVC) producer, as per the company's press release.

Nouryon’s patented CiD technology allows PVC producers to increase reactor output by up to 40 percent, improve product quality, and make the production process intrinsically safer – all with minimum capital expenditure.

"The agreement with Karpatnaftochim once again confirms our strong offering to customers in the PVC market," said Johan Landfors, Managing Director Polymer Chemistry. "Many customers have made the shift to CiD technology, and we expect interest for this technology to continue to grow as more users realize its advantages."

In conventional PVC production, the organic peroxide initiator is added in one step - this generates a lot of heat and the reactor output is determined by the cooling capacity. With CiD technology, the initiator is added continuously, reducing the amount of heat produced, making the process safer and increasing the effective capacity of the reactor.

Ivan Pidsadyuk, General Director of Karpatnaftochim, added: "Nouryon’s CiD technology introduces unique benefits for us and our customers. As an important manufacturer in a competitive market, we aim to incorporate solutions that give us an advantage."

As reported earlier, Karpatneftekhim resumed operations on 9 June 2017, after a five-year outage.

Karpatneftekhim is one of the largest enterprises of Ukraine's petrochemical complex. Currently, the plant can produce annually 300,000 tonnes of PVC, 200,000 tonnes of caustic soda, about 180,000 tonnes of chlorine, as well as 250,000 tonnes of ethylene and 100,000 tonnes of polyethylene.
MRC