BASF to reshape organization

MOSCOW (MRC) -- With an organizational realignment, BASF is creating the conditions for greater customer proximity, increased competitiveness and more profitable growth, said the company.

BASF is streamlining its administration, sharpening the roles of services and regions and simplifying procedures and processes. As a result, the company expects savings of €300 million, as part of the ongoing excellence program, which is anticipated to contribute €2 billion to earnings annually from the end of 2021 onwards.

In the course of the strategy implementation, BASF expects a reduction of a total of around 6,000 positions worldwide until the end of 2021. This decrease results from the organizational simplification and from efficiency gains in administration and services as well as in the operating divisions. In addition, central structures are being streamlined in the context of the announced portfolio changes. BASF will continue to need additional employees in fields like production or digitalization, depending on future growth rates.

"We will set up the new organization with a clear focus on leveraging synergies, reducing interfaces and enabling flexibility and creativity,” said Dr. Martin Brudermuller, Chairman of the Board of Executive Directors of BASF. “We want our customers to experience a new BASF. To achieve this, we have to live a new BASF. We will therefore continue to develop our organization to work more effectively and efficiently. In this way, we will ensure the success of our customers, strengthen our competitiveness, and grow profitably as a company."

Customer-focused operating divisions, service units and regions as well as a lean Corporate Center are the cornerstones of BASF’s new organization. The Corporate Center will consist of less than 1,000 employees and will support BASF’s Board of Executive Directors in steering the company as a whole. This includes central responsibilities, among others in the areas of strategy, finance, legal, human resources and communications.

In addition, around 29,000 employees will be working in cross-functional service units. “Global Engineering Services” and “Global Digital Services” will in future offer their services either for individual sites or globally for business units of the BASF Group, “Global Procurement” will make purchasing even more effective. “Global Business Services” will be newly established and will form a worldwide network of about 8,000 employees providing end-to-end services. They will support the business units with services, among others from the areas of finance, human resources, communications and supply chain. The unit “Global Business Services” will be led by Marc Ehrhardt, currently head of the Finance division.

The role of regions and countries is being sharpened. They represent BASF locally and support the growth of business units with local proximity to customers.

In view of the current changes and further changes planned until the end of 2021, management and employee representatives have jointly decided to move forward the start of negotiations on a new site agreement for the BASF SE. The current site agreement is valid until the end of December 2020. The goal is to sign a new agreement in the first half of 2020.

At BASF, we create chemistry for a sustainable future. We combine economic success with environmental protection and social responsibility. The approximately 122,000 employees in the BASF Group work on contributing to the success of our customers in nearly all sectors and almost every country in the world. Our portfolio is organized into six segments: Chemicals, Materials, Industrial Solutions, Surface Technologies, Nutrition & Care and Agricultural Solutions. BASF generated sales of around €63 billion in 2018. BASF shares are traded on the stock exchange in Frankfurt (BAS) and as American Depositary Receipts (BASFY) in the U.S.
MRC

MOSCOW (MRC) -- SABIC would like to announce that all regulatory approvals have been completed in relation to the extension of its joint venture with the Japan Saudi Arabia Methanol Company (JSMC), Inc. in Saudi Methanol Company (Arrazi) for 20 years (where SABIC’s share will be 75% and JSMC’s share will be 25%), as per Mubasher.

The financial impact will start in Q2’ 2019. Japan Saudi Arabia Methanol Company (JSMC), Inc. will pay SABIC USD1.35 billion in three installments, ending in 2021.

In addition, 2019 financial results of Arrazi will be consolidated based on the new ownership structure.

As MRC informed before, in February 2018, in response to customer needs, Sabic announced projects in Asia and the Netherlands designed to increase global capacity for two of its high-performance engineering thermoplastic materials, Ultem and Noryl resins. The planned new production facility in Singapore is expected to go online in the first half of 2021. The company also plans to recommission operations at its Bergen op Zoom PPE resin plant in the Netherlands by the end of 2019 to produce polyphenylene ether (PPE), the base resin for its line of Noryl resins and oligomers.

Saudi Basic Industries Corporation (Sabic) ranks among the world's top petrochemical companies. The company is among the worldпїЅs market leaders in the production of polyethylene, polypropylene and other advanced thermoplastics, glycols, methanol and fertilizers.
MRC

MOSCOW (MRC) -- The chemicals arm of Malaysia’s state energy firm Petronas plans to spend roughly USD6 billion over the next 15 to 20 years to expand its specialty chemicals portfolio through acquisitions and partnerships, reported Hydrocarbonprocessing with reference to the unit’s chief executive's statement.

The budget is part of Petronas Chemicals Group Bhd’s efforts to make high-margin specialty chemicals a central part of its business, Sazali Hamzah said in an interview with Reuters at the Asia Oil & Gas Conference.

"By doing that we are going to diversify our portfolio and our dependency on crude and gas will be a lot less," he said.

Petronas Chemicals has been looking to grow rapidly in specialty chemicals, which are raw materials used to manufacture consumer products such as high-performance tyres, medical gloves and LED televisions.

Other major oil companies such as Saudi Aramco have also been expanding into petrochemicals in recent years to diversify from crude oil production.

In May, Petronas Chemicals acquired Netherlands-based Da Vinci Group BV for 163 million euros (USD186 million) in the first acquisition of its specialty chemicals push.

An immediate growth area for the company is the Refinery and Petrochemical Integrated Development (RAPID) business, a 50-50 partnership with Saudi Aramco in the southern Malaysian state of Johor.

RAPID, which is part of Petronas’ USD27 billion Pengerang Integrated Complex, will contain a 300,000 barrels-per-day oil refinery and a petrochemical complex with a production capacity of 7.7 million metric tonnes per year.

Petronas Chemicals is spearheading the petrochemicals component of RAPID, which is expected to start commercial operations in the fourth quarter.

Sazali said Petronas Chemicals had lined up customers for products from RAPID - mostly from South East Asia, but also from China, Japan and South Korea.

The company is studying further expansion of the petrochemicals operations in Pengerang, he said.

"We are focused on Pengerang because it has all the facilities for future growth. We are now doing studies with a few potential partners," Sazali said.

The company is budgeting another USD6-USD7 billion over 20 years for expansion in Pengerang and existing Malaysian operations in Kerteh and Kedah, he said.

As MRC informed earlier, Petronas plans to build a C6-based metallocene linear LDPE plant and a low density polyethylene (LDPE)/ethylene vinyl acetate (EVA) swing plant at its greenfield integrated refinery and petrochemical complex in southern Johor state by mid-2019. The proposed metallocene LLDPE will have a capacity of 350,000 tpa, while the LDPE/EVA will have a capacity of about 150,000 tpa. The two plants are part of Petronas' planned Refinery and Petrochemical Integrated Development project in Pengerang at Johor.

Petronas, short for Petroliam Nasional Berhad, is a Malaysian oil and gas company wholly owned by the Government of Malaysia. The Group is engaged in a wide spectrum of petroleum activities, including upstream exploration and production of oil and gas to downstream oil refining; marketing and distribution of petroleum products; trading; gas processing and liquefaction; gas transmission pipeline network operations; marketing of liquefied natural gas; petrochemical manufacturing and marketing; shipping; automotive engineering; and property investment.
MRC

MOSCOW (MRC) -- LyondellBasell sites have been honored for safety by American Fuel and Petrochemical Manufacturers Association, as per Hydrocarbonprocessing.

Companies in the refining and petrochemical industries continue to improve on workplace safety as evidenced by the number of honors handed out at the American Fuel and Petrochemical Manufacturers Association (AFPM) Annual Safety Awards event. The trade association’s mission is to create safer and healthier environments for tens of thousands of workers across the country.

Among the businesses leading the way is LyondellBasell. Three LyondellBasell plants earned the Distinguished Safety Award (DSA), AFPM’s top safety award. The sites are located in Chocolate Bayou, Texas, Clinton, Iowa and Channelview, Texas.

"Only seven facilities in the country won the DSA this year. Receiving this level of recognition at three LyondellBasell plants which represent a small, medium and large site, shows that no matter the size of the facility or staff, we can deliver excellence every day," said Dale Friedrichs, LyondellBasell Health Safety and Environment Vice President. "Our ultimate goal at LyondellBasell is that everyone who comes through our gates, goes home safely to their families."

LyondellBasell leaders wanted to build on the momentum of 2018 where the staff achieved its lowest Total Recordable Incident Rate in company history. For some of the locations, it was a repeat performance.

"Chocolate Bayou is dedicated to continually improving our programs and it’s because the stellar staff here that this site has made the list again,” said Yarelis Hernandez, LyondellBasell Chocolate Bayou site manager. ЭWe take pride in our work and look out for each other and it shows in our company culture."

Site managers like Hernandez have found continually focusing on safety as the best way to battle complacency. Strong programs and support from the top make the difference.

"It’s only when you instill a comprehensive approach like LyondellBasell’s that you get this type of outcome," said Lara Swett, senior director, AFPM Safety Programs. "What this translates to is thousands of people who know they work in an environment where safety is a top priority and that dedication extends to the community and neighbors as well."

As MRC wrote previously, in August 2016, LyondellBasell made the final investment decision to build a high density polyethylene (HDPE) plant on the US Gulf Coast. The plant will have an annual capacity of 1.1 billion pounds (500,000 metric tons) and will be the first commercial plant to employ LyondellBasell's new proprietary Hyperzone PE technology. The start-up of the new plant is scheduled for 2019.

LyondellBasell is one of the largest plastics, chemicals and refining companies in the world. Driven by its 13,000 employees around the globe, LyondellBasell produces materials and products that are key to advancing solutions to modern challenges like enhancing food safety through lightweight and flexible packaging, protecting the purity of water supplies through stronger and more versatile pipes, and improving the safety, comfort and fuel efficiency of many of the cars and trucks on the road. LyondellBasell sells products into approximately 100 countries and is the world's largest licensor of polyolefin technologies.
MRC

MOSCOW (MRC) -- Further tests confirm oil flowing via the Druzhba pipeline is not contaminated and Czech refiner Unipetrol, a unit of Poland’s PKN Orlen, will restart accepting deliveries in the afternoon, reported Reuters with reference to Czech state reserves chief Pavel Svagr's statement.

"Unipetrol told me that the results in control samples are fine," Svagr told Reuters. "The tests show that the oil is absolutely normal... and it can be processed."

“Based on this analysis, Unipetrol will begin accepting oil from the Druzhba pipeline this afternoon. The situation is standard and normalised.”

Czech oil refiner Unipetrol stopped taking oil from the Druzhba pipeline on Monday due to chloride contamination detected at the Ukraine-Slovakia border.

As MRC wrote earlier, in April 2019, Unipetrol trusted its engineering, procurement and construction management (EPCM) contract to McDermott International for its Litvinov refinery in Czech Republic. Under the contract, McDermott will be responsible to provide EPCM services for the upgrade of a hydrocracking unit at the Litvinov refinery.

Unipetrol , a.s. is a group of companies operating in the petrochemical industry in the Czech Republic. In 2005 Unipetrol became a part of the PKN ORLEN Group, the largest oil processor in Central Europe. The UNIPETROL Group is oriented mostly towards oil processing, fuel distribution and petrochemical production. In all of these business areas the Unipetrol Group is among the key players both in the Czech Republic and on the Central European market. The Group ranks among the leading firms in the Czech Republic in terms of its revenues, and employs almost 4,000 people.
MRC