MOSCOW (MRC) --Thailand-listed producer Indorama Ventures Ltd (IVL) on Tuesday reported a sharp drop in its first-quarter net profit, weighed by negative foreign exchange effects and higher inventory losses, said the company.
- Foreign exchange loss of baht (Bt) 362m in Q1 2020 versus gain of Bt99m in the same period last year.
- Inventory loss widened to Bt3.44bn in the first quarter from Bt1.21bn in the same period in 2019.
- Production volumes rose by 12% year on year to 3.31m tonnes in the first quarter.
As MRC wrote before, in May 2019, IVL announced that its indirect subsidiary Indorama Ventures Olefins in Westlake, LA, a manufacturer of Ethylene from Ethane with an annual capacity of 440,000 MT, achieved mechanical completion and was undergoing trial runs. IVOL then stabilized the production of on-spec ethylene and its byproducts at 5 of its 7 furnaces and ramped up gradually during the course of 2Q19. This project is the most ambitious project of its kind in IVL history and creates an exciting new platform of growth as well as affording stability and supply chain advantages to the EO/EG business by its pipeline integration. At normalized production, IVL will secure ~75% ethylene for internal consumption for EO/EG production and merchant the remaining output.
Ethylene and propylene are feedstocks for producing polyethylene (PE) and polypropylene (PP).
According to MRC's ScanPlast report, Russia's estimated PE consumption totalled 383,760 tonnes in the first two month of 2020, up by 14% year on year. High density polyethylene (HDPE) and linear low density polyethylene (LLDPE) shipments increased due to the increased capacity utilisation at ZapSibNeftekhim. At the same time, PP shipments to the Russian market were 192,760 tonnes in January-February 2020, down by 6% year on year. Homopolymer PP accounted for the main decrease in imports.
Indorama Ventures Public Company Limited, listed in Thailand, is one of the world's leading petrochemicals producers, a global manufacturing footprint with 59 sites in 20 countries across Africa, Asia, Europe and North America. The company's portfolio is comprises necessities and high value-added (HVA) categories of polymers, fibers, and packaging. Indorama Ventures has approx. 15,000 employees worldwide and consolidated revenue of USD 8.4 billion in 2017. The company is listed in the Dow Jones Sustainability Index (DJSI).
(USD1 = Bt22.7)
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