South African Sapref to close for routine maintenance

MOSCOW (MRC) -- South Africa’s largest refinery, the 180,000 barrel per day Sapref plant in the east coast city of Durban will shut down for routine maintenance from the last week of May until the end of July, reported Reuters with reference to a refinery official.

The refinery, in which BP Southern Africa (BPSA) will invest USD1 billion for upgrades, is a 50/50 joint venture between the local unit of BP and Royal Dutch Shell.

As MRC informed earlier, in November 2018, BP Plc’s trading arm entered a tolling agreement with the owners of an idled oil refinery in St. Croix, US Virgin Islands, cementing plans to bring the plant back online six years after it was idled by previous owners. Under BP’s tolling agreement with Limetree Bay Refining LLC, owner of the idled Hovensa refinery, BP will supply the facility with crude and sell its products, low-sulfur fuels that will meet an International Maritime Organization mandate in 2020, it said in a statement.
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MOSCOW (MRC) - Five Republican senators are warning President Donald Trump’s new pick to run the Environmental Protection Agency, Andrew Wheeler, that their support for his nomination may hinge on his biofuels policy, said Reuters.

The senators, all from states hosting oil refineries, said they want to be assured that Wheeler would work to reduce the regulatory costs for oil companies of complying with the U.S. Renewable Fuel Standard before they decide on whether to back him as permanent chief of the EPA.

The Renewable Fuel Standard requires oil refiners to blend increasing amounts of biofuels like corn-based ethanol into their fuel each year, or purchase blending credits from those who do. The measure is intended to help farmers and reduce U.S. dependence on foreign energy sources, but oil refining companies - like Valero Energy Corp and billionaire investor Carl Icahn’s CVR Energy Inc - complain it costs them a fortune.

"Without an adequate proposal to meaningfully lower the regulatory burden ... we will have serious concerns with your nomination,” the five Republican senators said in a letter to Wheeler dated Feb. 11.

The letter was signed by Ted Cruz of Texas, Pat Toomey of Pennsylvania, Michael Lee of Utah, as well as both John Kennedy and Bill Cassidy of Louisiana.

The five were due to meet with Wheeler later on Wednesday night to discuss biofuels, according to two sources familiar with the matter.

The EPA is working on a number of critical adjustments to its biofuel policy that are of interest to the oil industry, including resetting targets for annual biofuels blending volumes, lifting a summertime ban on higher-ethanol blends of asoline, and proposing measures to limit speculation in the blending credit market.

Wheeler, a longtime Washington insider and former coal lobbyist, took the reins at EPA on an interim basis in July after his predecessor, Scott Pruitt, resigned in a storm of controversy over his high spending on first-class travel, round-the-clock security, and office equipment.

Trump nominated him in January, but a full vote of the Senate is required for his confirmation.
MRC

MOSCOW (MRC) - Abu Dhabi National Oil Company is seeking to invest in more downstream assets, mainly in refining and petrochemicals, in strategic locations like India to find a stable outlet for its oil, said its chief executive officer, Sultan Ahmed Al Jaber, as per Hydrocarbonprocessing.

"India is not only an important market for us. India is a very strategic partner for United Arab Emirates, spanning all ... sectors, energy being one of (them)," he told reporters on the sidelines of energy conference Petrotech.

ADNOC, along with Saudi Aramco, is participating in a planned 1.2 million-barrels-per-day (bpd) coastal refinery in western Maharashtra state. ADNOC is also keen to lease more strategic storage in India, Al Jaber said.

"Expanding our strategic reserve in India will be an item on the agenda to be discussed with our great friends in India," he told a conference in New Delhi.

ADNOC last year signed a preliminary agreement to use half of the Padur strategic reserve facility in southern India. The site can store about 2.5 million tonnes or 18 million barrels of crude.

India, which relies on oil imports for about 80 percent of its needs, has built underground emergency storage in three places to protect itself from any disruption.

The underground reserves can hold 36.87 million barrels or about 9.5 days of average demand.

ADNOC, the only foreign company with a deal to store oil in India’s strategic reserves, has another storage deal agreement at Mangalore’s strategic storage in Karnataka.

"We will always be looking for ways to enhance our cooperation with our Indian counterparts, catering for the Indian market and beyond," Al Jaber said.
MRC

MOSCOW (MRC) -- Houston-area chemical maker Huntsman Corporation saw mixed results in the fourth quarter as it weathered weakening demand and lower prices, but still still ended 2018 with a solid profit for the years, said the company.

The Woodlands company said it lost USD315 million in the fourth quarter, compared to a profit of USD287 million the same period last year. Its revenue for the fourth quarter stayed essentially flat at about USD2.2 billion.

For all of 2018, Huntsman reported USD615 million profit, down 17 percent from USD741 million in 2017. Revenues, however, jumped by USD1 billion, or 12 percent to USD9.3 billion last year from USD8.3 billion in 2017.

Huntsman blamed the decline in annual profits on its 49 percent holdings in Venator, the pigments and additives company that Huntsman spun off into a separate public company in 2017. Venator's stock price has plummeted 73 percent to USD5.50 per a share since it debuted because of volatility in the pigments and additives market.

Huntsman is trying to sell all or most of its shares in Venator, a Huntsman company spokesperson said.
Revenue from on its major segments, polyurethane, dipped in the fourth quarter because of lower average selling prices in China and Europe. Polyurethanes are chemicals used to make high-resilience foam seating, rigid foam insulation panels, microcellular foam seals and gaskets, durable elastomeric wheels and tires.

Lower polyurethane prices were partially offset by a 5 percent boost in production volume thanks to the start of a MDI polyurethane plant in China and the April 2018 acquisition of Demilec, a North American polyurethane spray foam company.

Uncertainty in global markets tied to Brexit and U.S.-Chinese trade talks spurred many of Huntsman's customers to rely on their existing inventories rather buy up new products in a "wait-and-see" approach known as destocking.
Despite all of this its MDI urethane business still reported the second best fourth quarter in terms of earnings in the company's history, Peter R. Huntsman, CEO of Huntsman told investors.

Looking ahead Huntsman's CEO told investors in Tuesday earnings call he expects demand to pick up in 2019 based on higher orders the company has seen so far this year. If a trade deal with China is reached that could boost demand too, Huntsman said. A Brexit deal could have a relatively minimal (USD15 million) negative impact on its supply chain in Europe, he added.
MRC

MOSCOW (MRC) -- The Federal Trade Commission has approved an application from industrial gas suppliers Praxair and Linde to divest a hydrogen gas and carbon monoxide gas plant to Celanese Ltd, as per FTC.

The divestiture of the plant is required under the FTC’s October 22, 2018 proposed order, which requires Praxair and Linde to divest certain industrial gases assets to settle charges that the USD80 billion merger of Praxair and Linde would violate federal antitrust law.

The application proposes that Celanese Ltd. will acquire Linde’s hydrogen gas and carbon monoxide gas plant in Clear Lake, Texas. The Commission vote to approve the application was 4-0-1 (Commissioner Chopra abstaining).

The Federal Trade Commission works to promote competition, and protect and educate consumers.

As MRC reported before, 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). The price increase below was effective as of 31 January, or as contracts otherwise allow, and was incremental to any previously announced increases. Thus, Celanese raised VAM list and off-list selling prices 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.
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