Valero appoints president and COO

MOSCOW (MRC) -- Valero Energy Corp. has approved officer promotions, effective Januany 23, 2020, according to Oil&Gas Journal.

Lane Riggs has been promoted and elected president of Valero and will hold the title of president and chief operating officer, reflecting the expansion of his responsibilities to also include renewables and logistics operations.

Gary Simmons has been promoted and elected executive vice-president and chief commercial officer. Gary has lead Valero’s commercial organization since 2014. He will continue in his new role with oversight of the company’s crude supply and products trading, wholesale marketing, transportation, and international commercial operations groups.

Eric Fisher has been promoted and elected senior vice-president of wholesale marketing and international commercial operations.

As MRC wrote before, Valero Energy Corp on Saturday shut a diesel hydrotreater at its 335,000 barrel-per-day (BPD) Port Arthur, Texas, refinery. Also, a hydrocracker remains shut at the refinery for repairs.

Besides, last year, Valero Energy Corp restarted the small CDU at its Port Arthur refinery after repairing a valve on 25 September. And in late October 2019, Valero Energy Corp shut the small crude distillation unit (CDU) at its Port Arthur refinery. The 75,000-bpd AVU 147 CDU was shut to repair a heat exchanger.

Propylene is the main feedstock for the production of polypropylene (PP).

According to MRC's ScanPlast report, the PP consumption in the Russian market was 1,161,830 tonnes in January-November 2019, up by 7% year on year. Deliveries of all grades of propylene polymers increased, with the homopolymer PP segment accounting for the largest increase.
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MOSCOW (MRC) -- Brazilian petrochemical producer Braskem will permanently shut down the smaller of its two chlor-alkali plants, reported S&P Global with reference to the company's statement.

In a notice to shareholders late Thursday, Braskem said it would begin shutting the 41-year-old plant down in April.
The facility in Camacari, Bahia, has a capacity of 79,000 mt/year of caustic soda and 64,000 mt/year of chlorine.

Braskem said Friday the plant makes raw material for customers and third parties, and is not part of the company's polyvinyl (PVC) production chain in the neighboring state of Alagoas.

"The market will not be affected by its closure," the company said. "The main customers were informed in advance and have already sought solutions, such as importing the material."

The company also said in its notice to shareholders that the shutdown was "explained by the end of the facility's useful life."

The shutdown will leave Braskem with no chlor-alkali production in Brazil, and wholly dependent on imports.

In May last year, Braskem shut the larger of its two Brazilian chlor-alkali plants and its sole downstream ethylene dichloride facility in Alagoas. Those closures came shortly after Brazil's Geological Survey issued a report linking Braskem's Alagoas salt mining operation to geological damage in the city of Maceio, including fissures and a small earthquake in March 2018.

Braskem said Friday that the Alagoas plant is in a different system and unrelated to the Bahia plant. The Bahia facility is used to sell raw material to customers and third parties.

The larger chlor-alkali plant has a capacity of 460,000 mt/year of caustic soda and 400,000 mt/year of chlorine, and the EDC plant's capacity is 520,000 mt/year.

Braskem aims to restart those Alagoas plants in the first half of this year, but the company has to find another source of salt to feed the chlor-alkali facility. Braskem said last year that it will permanently shut the Maceio salt mine, and the company is looking into sourcing salt from neighboring Rio Grande do Norte state, or possibly establish a new salt mine in a more rural part of Alagoas.

Braskem had already imported salt to feed the smaller Bahia chlor-alkali plant.

Chlorine mixed with ethylene makes EDC, a precursor to construction staple PVC. Caustic soda, a byproduct of chlorine production, is a key feedstock for alumina and pulp and paper industries.

Brazil is the largest market for US export caustic soda, and last year's shutdowns sharply increased that demand pull.

US caustic soda flows to Brazil from January through October 2019 rose 22.6% to 2.2 million mt compared with the same span of 2018, according to US International Trade Commission data.

Braskem's EDC import demand rose as well so Braskem could maintain downstream PVC production. US EDC flows to Brazil nearly tripled in the January through October period last year to 246,536 mt compared with the same 10 months of 2018, USITC data showed.

As MRC informed before, Brazilian petrochemical producer Braskem is no longer pursuing a petrochemical project, which would have included an ethane cracker, in West Virginia, announced the company in April, 2019. And the company has been seeking to sell the land that would have housed the cracker.

According to MRC's DataScope report, exports of suspension polyvinyl chloride (SPVC) from Russia totalled 193,700 tonnes in 2019, up by 11% year on year. Imports increased more significantly - by 217% year on year - to 50,900 tonnes.

Braskem S.A. produces petrochemicals and generates electricity. The Company produces ethylene, propylene, benzene, toluene, xylenes, butadiene, butene, isoprene, dicyclopentediene, MTBE, caprolactam, ammonium sulfate, cyclohexene, polyethylene theraphtalat, polyethylene, and polyvinyl chloride (PVC).
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MOSCOW (MRC) -- Magellan Midstream Partners, L.P. announced an agreement to sell three marine terminals to Buckeye Partners, L.P. for USD250 million, said Hydrocarbonprocessing.

The terminals are located in New Haven, Connecticut, Wilmington, Delaware and Marrero, Louisiana. "Magellan remains focused on capital discipline and managing our business for the long term," said Michael Mears, chief executive officer. “Optimization of our asset portfolio, including divestiture of facilities outside our strategic footprint, is an important element to maximize unitholder value and our strong financial position."

Mears continued, “I would also like to personally and on behalf of the organization express our gratitude for the contributions from all employees supporting these facilities through the years and during this time of transition."

The sale is expected to close by late first quarter or early second quarter 2020, subject to regulatory approvals. The partnership intends to provide 2020 financial guidance as part of its fourth-quarter 2019 earnings release on Jan. 30 but does not expect the terminals sale to have a material impact on its future financial results.

Jefferies served as financial advisor and GableGotwals served as legal counsel to Magellan in connection with the transaction.

The partnership also announced that its board of directors has authorized the repurchase of up to $750 million of common units through 2022. Magellan intends to purchase its common units from time-to-time through a variety of methods, including open market purchases and negotiated transactions, all in compliance with the rules of the Securities and Exchange Commission and other applicable legal requirements.

As MRC informed earlier, Magellan Midstream Partners LP has begun talks with companies developing crude transportation assets in Freeport, Texas, as it considers building a US crude export terminal there instead of its previously planned spot off Corpus Christi.
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MOSCOW (MRC) -- US crude oil and distillate inventories fell last week while gasoline stockpiles grew for an 11th consecutive week to an all-time high, reported Reuters with reference to the Energy Information Administration.

Crude inventories fell 405,000 barrels in the week to Jan. 17, government data showed, less than analysts’ expectations in a Reuters poll for a 1 million-barrel drop.

Crude stocks at the Cushing, Oklahoma, delivery hub for the benchmark US crude futures , fell 961,000 barrels to 34.9 million barrels, their lowest since November 2018, the EIA said.

US crude futures briefly pared losses after the data was released, but then traded down USD1.80, or 3.2%, to USD54.95 a barrel by 1 p.m. EST (1800 GMT).

"Crude inventories have ticked slightly lower in the last week, as a minor drop in imports has been offset by lower refining activity," Matthew Smith, director of commodity research at ClipperData.

Net US crude imports slipped last week by 53,000 barrels per day, while refinery crude runs fell by 116,000 bpd, the EIA said.

Refinery utilization rates fell for a third straight week, decreasing by 1.7 percentage points to 90.5% of total capacity.

US gasoline stocks rose by 1.7 million barrels in the week to a record 260 million barrels, the EIA said, compared with analyst expectations for a 3.1 million-barrel rise.

Total motor gasoline inventories were about 4% above the five-year average for this time of year, the EIA said.

Distillate stockpiles, which include diesel and heating oil, fell by 1.2 million barrels in the week to 146 million barrels, versus expectations for a 1 million-barrel rise, the data showed.

US Gulf Coast distillate inventories rose 71,000 barrels to 46.8 million barrels, their highest since September 2017.

Over the past four weeks, gasoline supplied was down by 1.4% from the same period last year, while distillate demand dropped 8.3% year-on-year.
MRC