Angarsk Polymers Plant shut PE production

MOSCOW (MRC) -- Angarsk Polymers Plant (part of Rosneft) has shut down its low density polyethylene (LDPE) production, according to ICIS-MRC Price report.

The plant's customers said Angarsk Polymers Plant took off-stream its LDPE production due to severe frosts in the region. The exact dates of the forced outage have not been announced so far. The plant's annual production capacity is 80,000 tonnes.

Angarsk Polymer Plant (controlled by Rosneft through OOO Neft-Aktiv) is the only petrochemical full-cycle plant in Eastern Siberia. The bulk of the produced ethylene is used by the plant for the production of LDPE, styrene monomer (SM) and polystyrene (PS). Straight-run gasoline and hydrocarbon gases, mainly produced by OAO Angarskaya NHK, are the feedstocks for the plant.
MRC

MOSCOW (MRC) -- Exports of suspension polyvinyl chloride (SPVC) from Russia totalled about 18,000 tonnes last month, compared to 15,600 tonnes a year earlier. Imports were still scarce, according to MRC's DataScope report.
Russian producers have maintained fairly high exports since last October amid weak demand for SPVC from the domestic market. Exports of Russian suspension were about 18,000 tonnes in the first month of the year, compared to 15,600 tonnes a year earlier and 19,300 tonnes last December. Overall exports of resin from Russia totalled 146,300 tonnes in 2018 versus 100,700 tonnes a year earlier. The increased output and the continuing decline in demand from the domestic market forced Russian producers to export more and more PVC for export.

Indian buyers with a volume of over 66,000 tonnes became the key foreign importers of Russian resin. Belarusian customers with a volume of over 28,000 tonnes were the second largest buyers of SPVC in Russia.

Sufficient supply of PVC from Russian producers led to a multiple decrease in imports. There were almost no foreign SPVC shipments last month. Overall imports totalled 16,100 tonnes in the entire year of 2018 versus 48,900 tonnes a year earlier.

MRC

MOSCOW (MRC) - Contrary to the seasonal factor, Russian producers of unmixed polyvinyl chloride (PVC) maintain a high level of capacity utilisation. Average January capacity utilisation exceeded 93%, and the total volume of production amounted to 87,760 tonnes, according to MRC' ScanPlast.

January production of unmixed PVC in Russia decreased to 87,760 tonnes, compared with 89,800 tonnes in January 2018 and 87,600 tonnes in December 2018. Thus, despite the relatively low level of demand for PVC from the domestic market, the average capacity loading last month exceeded 93%. Overall PVC production reached 958,600 tonnes in January-December 2018, compared to 906,200 tonnes a year earlier.

The structure of PVC production by plants looked the following way over the stated period.

RusVinyl (joint venture of SIBUR and SolVin) produced about 29,500 tonnes of PVC in January, with about 2,500 tonnes of which accounted for emulsion polyvinyl chloride (EPVC), compared to 31,300 tonnes in January 2018 and 29,000 tonnes a month earlier. Total PVC production at RusVinyl in 2018 reached 334,300 tonnes.

SayanskKhimPlast in January 2019 produced 27,700 tonnes of SPVC, while in January and December last year it was 27,100 tonnes and 27,300 tonnes respectively. Total PVC production at SayanskKhimPlast in 2018 was 278,8500 tonnes.

Bashkir Soda Company (BSC) in January produced about 23,000 tonnes of SPVC, compared to 23,300 tonnes in January and 23,700 tonnes in December a year earlier. Total SPVC production at Bashkir Soda Company in 2018 was 253,400 tonnes.

Kaustik Volgograd in January 2019 produced about 7,600 tonnes of SPVC, while in January and December last year it was 8,200 tonnes and 7,700 tonnes respectively. Total PVC production at Kaustik in 2019 reached about 92,200 tonnes.


MRC

MOSCOW (MRC) -- The government of Curacao is resuming talks with two candidates to operate the nation’s 335,000-barrel-per-day Isla refinery after its preferred bidder withdrew from consideration, reported Reuters with reference to the refinery's statement.

The government-owned refinery has operated under a contract with Venezuelan state-run oil firm PDVSA that lasts through December, but it began a search for a replacement last year after a dispute between PDVSA and US oil producer ConocoPhillips kept the plant idled.

Selection of a new operator has been delayed by an investigation into corruption allegations related to the evaluation process. In its statement, the refinery said that delay and a review of other opportunities led its preferred bidder to withdraw.

"The team in charge of the process is already working together with international experts to quickly take the necessary steps," the Refineria di Korsou, as it is known formally, said in its statement.

Curacao did not identify the preferred bidder in its statement, but local media said it was Motiva Enterprises, the US-based arm of Saudi Aramco.

A spokesperson for Motiva declined to comment.

Motiva last year said it was "actively exploring a number of opportunities and locations" to boost its North American oil refining capacity to as much as 1.5 million barrels per day (bpd). Its plant in Port Arthur, Texas, is the largest US refinery by capacity, processing 603,000 bpd.

A memorandum of understanding with PDVSA’s replacement was expected to be signed and disclosed in the middle of January, a refinery executive had said late last year.

The Isla refinery is committed to keeping the facility open, and in its statement on Tuesday said that PDVSA has expressed interest in continuing at the site. It did not identify the two remaining candidates in the evaluation of a new operator.

As MRC wrote before, in December 2018, Motiva Enterprises was preliminarily chosen by the government of Curacao to operate the 335,000-barrel-per-day Isla refinery, replacing Venezuela’s state-run PDVSA. The refinery has been idle since May 2018 when a legal dispute between PDVSA and US producer ConocoPhillips forced its closure.
MRC

MOSCOW (MRC) - U.S. crude traders are bracing for increasing supplies at Cushing, Oklahoma, the delivery point for benchmark crude futures, as unexpected refinery issues add to inventories that are already at the highest in more than a year, said Reuters.

Inventories at Cushing rose to 42.6 million barrels in the week to Feb. 1, the highest level since early January 2018, the U.S. Energy Information Administration said. Problems at a key Midwest refinery, along with upcoming seasonal maintenance, have traders believing supplies will rise more than expected at Cushing in coming weeks.

A fire at Phillips 66’s 330,000 barrel-per-day (bpd) joint-venture Wood River, Illinois, refinery and a unit closure at the Ponca City, Oklahoma, plant added to the bearish outlook for prices, traders said.

The discount for front-month U.S. crude for delivery in March and futures for delivery in April widened to as much as 39 cents a barrel on Monday, the most in nearly a year and a half, reflecting expectations of supply increases at the storage hub. Increased supply makes traders less inclined to pay higher prices for near-term oil.

The weakness in U.S. crude futures pushed the discount for U.S. West Texas Intermediate (WTI) versus international benchmark Brent to the widest level in nearly two months, at USD9.52 a barrel.

“The outages, whether they’re unplanned, or even more importantly the planned ones, are going to be mounting here, and that’s going to engender a significant rise at Cushing,” said John Kilduff, a partner at Again Capital Management in New York.

The second largest crude distillation unit (CDU) was shut by a fire on Sunday at Phillips 66’s joint-venture Wood River refinery, a source familiar with plant operations said. Phillips 66 also shut the second-largest CDU at its Ponca City refinery for a planned overhaul, a source said.

"It’s a perfect storm of bearish information this morning for WTI,” said Scott Shelton, a broker at ICAP in Durham. “Fears of tank tops will only worsen for the second quarter on this information."

U.S. refiners were estimated to have about 1.8 million bpd of capacity offline in the week ending Feb. 8, increasing offline capacity by 629,000 bpd from a week earlier, research company IIR Energy said on Friday. Moreover, traders said some barrels headed for Patoka, Illinois, have been diverted to Cushing following an outage on a section of TransCanada’s Keystone pipeline. "You’re getting some additional flow into Cushing. That’ll put pressure on WTI," one crude trader said.
MRC