ExxonMobil, Chevron may write down big chunk of reserves if weak prices persist

MOSCOW (MRC) -- Low commodity prices and deep spending cuts in the first half of 2020 could lead US supermajors ExxonMobil and Chevron to write down huge chunks of their proved oil and natural gas reserves if prices remain depressed in the second half, reported S&P Global with reference to recent SEC filings.

In a 10-Q filing, ExxonMobil said Aug. 5 it could write down as much as 20% of its proved reserves, which totaled 22.4 billion barrels of oil equivalent at year-end 2019, thus implying a nearly 4.5 billion boe write-down.

If low prices persist for the rest of the year, "certain quantities of crude oil, bitumen, and natural gas will not qualify as proved reserves at year-end 2020," ExxonMobil said.

Separately, Chevron said in an Aug. 5 filing that it may revise downward its proved reserves by about 10%, mostly in the US Permian Basin and Australia.

"Should the current low commodity prices persist, it is expected that proved reserve quantities would decrease for oil and gas properties where economic limits are negatively impacted. Lower prices will positively impact proved reserves due to entitlement effects," Chevron said in the 10-Q filing.

The impacts of the COVID-19 pandemic on the economy and the unprecedented oil market crash prompted a wave of spending cuts but also hefty write-downs by most of the integrated oil and gas majors in the last several months, as they all shifted their longer-term crude price outlooks lower.

Chevron took a USD5.4 billion upstream charge in the second quarter, primarily related to a non-operating field in the Gulf of Mexico, conventional operations in the Permian, and various producing assets in Asia and Africa. The charge also included a USD2.6 billion impairment on assets in Venezuela, sparked by the uncertain operating environment and outlook in the South American country.

London-based BP booked a second-quarter post-tax write-down of USD10.9 billion for non-operating items and a post-tax impairment of USD6.5 billion on upstream exploration activities. Shell reported a post-tax charge of $16.8 billion in the second quarter.

Prior to the recent filing, ExxonMobil had not offered guidance regarding possible write-downs, after unveiling in April that it would trim this year's capital expenditures by 30%, from USD33 billion to USD23 billion, and slash its operating budget by 15%. As a result of the capex spending cuts, ExxonMobil also disclosed in the Aug. 5 filing it would cut its estimates of proved reserves by 1 billion boe for the year, most of it from US shale.

"Consequently, unit-of-production depreciation and depletion rates for upstream assets increased beginning in the first quarter," ExxonMobil said in the filing.

ExxonMobil will make deeper cuts to its operations and spending in 2021, the company said on its second quarter earnings call.

"Looking ahead to 2021, we see significant potential for additional reductions based on the identification of further long-term structural efficiencies, reduced activity levels, and an evaluation of our workforce requirements, including the potential for further reductions in overhead and management positions," ExxonMobil Senior Vice President Neil Chapman said July 31.

ExxonMobil's additional spending cuts as well as a review of the value of assets should be finalized with the company's board of directors in November and should be released in the first half of 2021.

As MRC informed previously, Chevron Phillips Chemical, part of Chevron Corporation, declared force majeure Sept. 1 on its polyethylene (PE) products after assessing the impact of Hurricane Laura to its Gulf Coast PE operations,

ExxonMobil is the largest non-government owned company in the energy industry and produces about 3% of the world's oil and about 2% of the world's energy.

According to MRC's DataScope report, PE imports to Russia dropped in January-June 2020 by 7% year on year to 328,000 tonnes. High density polyethylene (HDPE) accounted for the main decrease in imports.

Headquartered in San Ramon, California, Chevron Corporation is the the second-largest integrated energy company in the United States and among the largest corporations in the world. Chevron is involved in upstream activities including exploration and production, downstream activities including refining, marketing and transportation, and advanced energy technology. Chevron is also invested in power generation and gasification processes.
MRC

Johnson Matthey signs supply agreement with US biopharmaceutical firm

MOSCOW (MRC) -- Johnson Matthey (JM; London, UK) says it has entered into a five-year supply agreement with Sarepta Therapeutics (Andover, Massachusetts), a biopharmaceutical company, said Chemweek.

According to the terms of the agreement, JM will continue to provide regulatory starting materials to support Sarepta’s programs for phosphorodiamidate morpholino oligomer (PMO) and peptide phosphorodiamidate morpholino oligomer (PPMO), used for the treatment of Duchenne muscular dystrophy, the company says.

JM’s innovator products and solutions business that provides custom development and manufacturing (CDMO) services will produce these synthetic regulatory starting materials at its facilities at West Deptford, New Jersey, and Devens, Massachusetts, using their commercial-scale production trains, the company says.

The new agreement strengthens the relationship between the two companies. "Our collaboration with Sarepta signifies our continued commitment to existing and future PPMO and PMO programs, and Sarepta’s mission of engineering precision medicine for rare, devastating diseases," says Alex Zahiri, vice president/innovator products and solutions, CDMO business at JM.

As MRC informed earlier, Johnson Matthey (JM), the global leader in sustainable technologies with expertise in design and licensing of large-scale methanol plants, is pleased to announce another successful license award. JM has been selected by China’s Ningxia Baofeng Energy Group as licensor for the third methanol synthesis plant at their coal to olefins complex near Yinchuan in Ningxia Province PRC. With a planned capacity of 7200 mtpd, the methanol plant will be the largest single train methanol plant in the world once completed.

As MRC wrote previously, in June 2019, Johnson Matthey (JM) announced that Ningxia Baofeng Energy Group had "successfully" commissioned a new methanol plant at Ningxia Baofeng's 600,000-t/y coal-to-olefins complex in Ningxia Province, China. The 6,600-t/d methanol unit, based on technology from JM, utilizes syngas feedstock and combines advanced JM catalysts to produce stabilized methanol, which is used to produce olefins in a downstream facility.

Ethylene and propylene are feedstocks for producing polyethylene (PE) and polypropylene (PP).

According to MRC's DataScope report, PE imports to Russia dropped in January-June 2020 by 7% year on year to 328,000 tonnes. High density polyethylene (HDPE) accounted for the main decrease in imports. At the same time, PP imports into Russia rose in the first six months of 2020 by 21% year on year to 105,300 tonnes. Propylene homopolymer (homopolymer PP) accounted for the main increase in imports.

MRC

Air Liquide plans USD160-million expansion to supply Eastman Longview

MOSCOW (MRC) -- Air Liquide plans to invest over USD160 million in new capacity and upgrades to support a long-term agreement under which the company will supply additional gaseous oxygen, nitrogen, and syngas to Eastman Chemical’s Longview, Texas, facility, as per Chemweek.

The project includes construction of a new air separation unit (ASU) and a partial oxidation unit (POX), both slated for start-up in late 2021.

The new POX, which will employ Air Liquide’s patented Lurgi syngas technology, will capture and recycle carbon dioxide. Eastman uses syngas at Longview as a feedstock for the production of propionaldehyde, isobutanol, n-butanol, and 2-ethylhexanol.

“This project and supply agreement reflect Eastman’s focus to invest in growth opportunities through strategic partnerships to create positive economic and environmental benefits,” says Mark Costa, Eastman’s chairman and CEO.

As MRC reported earlier, Eastman Chemical has reported second-quarter net earnings down 89.5% year-on-year (YOY), to USD27 million, on sales down 18.6%, to USD1.92 billion. Adjusted earnings fell 57.2% YOY, to 85 cents/share, short of analysts’ consensus estimate of USD1.05/share, as reported by Refinitiv (New York, New York). Lower volumes, lower selling prices, and reduced capacity utilization hit both sales and profits, as the COVID-19 pandemic cut into demand in key end markets, including transportation, construction, and consumer durable goods.

We remind that in 2016, Eastman Chemical's chief executive Mark Costa announced that the company wanted to reduce its surplus ethylene and commodity intermediates, but did not intend to sell its cracker in Longview, Texas.

Ethylene and propylene are feedstocks for producing polyethylene (PE) and polypropylene (PP).

According to MRC's DataScope report, PE imports to Russia dropped in January-June 2020 by 7% year on year to 328,000 tonnes. High density polyethylene (HDPE) accounted for the main decrease in imports. At the same time, PP imports into Russia rose in the first six months of 2020 by 21% year on year to 105,300 tonnes. Propylene homopolymer (homopolymer PP) accounted for the main increase in imports.

Eastman is a global specialty chemical company that produces a broad range of products found in items people use every day. With a portfolio of specialty businesses, Eastman works with customers to deliver innovative products and solutions while maintaining a commitment to safety and sustainability. Its market-driven approaches take advantage of world-class technology platforms and leading positions in attractive end-markets such as transportation, building and construction and consumables. Eastman focuses on creating consistent, superior value for all stakeholders. As a globally diverse company, Eastman serves customers in more than 100 countries. The company is headquartered in Kingsport, Tennessee, USA and employs approximately 14,500 people around the world.
MRC

LG Chem targets zero major environmental, safety accidents from 2021

MOSCOW (MRC) -- LG Chem says it will establish a "global standard" for environmental safety and expand it to the company's business sites worldwide. LG Chem has also announced that it will reestablish its environmental safety standards for all its business sites globally and considerably strengthen its management system, said Chemweek.

LG Chem says that it is currently activating its M-Project, a large-scale safety initiative involving in-company environmental safety and process technology experts, as well as external agencies specialized in related fields, with the goal of achieving zero major environmental and safety accidents from 2021. The decision to execute the project followed the company's announcement in May that it would carry out safety inspections at all its sites worldwide following recent accidents in India and South Korea.

The company says that the new safety standards that will be applied to all its business sites around the world will be of “highest levels, while going beyond simply complying with local laws and regulations but managing it at global standards."

The company says that it has completed emergency diagnoses on high-risk processes and equipment at its 37 business sites—15 in South Korea and 22 overseas—and come up with a total of 590 cases for improvement. It is also investing a total of 81 billion South Korean won (USD5 billion) in environmental safety measures in 2020 to take immediate action for the necessary improvements detected during the inspections. In addition, about W235 billion will be invested every year by the company in environmental safety.

LG Chem aims to focus on developing technologies to identify signs of accidents in advance, using big data. Pilot facilities have been constructed at the company's Yeosu and Daesan, South Korea, petrochemical complexes to test digital transformation technologies. LG Chem plans to expand these applications to its other business sites and plants by next year.

LG Chem will also centralize the management of its budget and investments for environmental safety from each of its subsidiaries to a corporate environmental safety organization by the end of this year. There are also plans to restructure the handling of environmental safety across the company to strengthen the prevention of accidents, it adds.

"We have been focused on creating a fundamental countermeasure with the belief that there will be no future for us if we fail to ensure environmental safety,” says LG Chem CEO Hak-Cheol Shin. “We will focus all our energies on systemizing highly intense environmental-safety policies that we prepared with the mindset that we will not operate unless safe."

We remind that LG Chem, a South Korean petrochemical major, reduced its operational rates of its cracker to around 90-95% starting January 2020 due to weaker economic fundamentals. Based in Daesan, South Korea, the cracker is able to produce 1.27 million tons/year of ethylene and 650,000 tons/year of propylene. The company increased capacity utilisation at this cracker to 100% on 10 March, 2020, in order to supply ethylene to Lotte Chemical.

Ethylene and propylene are feedstocks for producing polyethylene (PE) and polypropylene (PP).

According to MRC's DataScope report, PE imports to Russia dropped in January-June 2020 by 7% year on year to 328,000 tonnes. High density polyethylene (HDPE) accounted for the main decrease in imports. At the same time, PP imports into Russia rose in the first six months of 2020 by 21% year on year to 105,300 tonnes. Propylene homopolymer (homopolymer PP) accounted for the main increase in imports.

MRC

Tomskneftekhim shut PE and PP production

MOSCOW (MRC) -- Tomskneftekhim, a subsidiary of SIBUR Holding, started a scheduled shutdown for maintenance at its low density polyethylene (LDPE) and polypropylene (PP) production capacities on 2 September, according to ICIS-MRC Price report.

The plant's representatives said the outage was scheduled and would last for about two weeks. The plant plans to modernize its polyethylene (PE) production by means of repairs.

Tomskneftekhim did not reduce output of its own products during the COVID-19 pandemic, said the plant's CEO Andrey Kugaevsky in late June. There was no significant reduction in shipments of material to end consumers either, despite the temporary closure of the borders of certain countries and regions. At the same time, Tomskneftekhim postponed the shutdown for a turnaround from 15 June to 2 September due to the situation with the spread of coronavirus infection.

According to MRC's ScanPlast report, Tomskneftekhim produced 23,200 tonnes of LDPE in July versus 23,700 tonnes a month earlier. The Tomsk plant's overall LDPE output reached 160,660 tonnes in January-July 2020, up by 4.6% year on year (154,590 tonnes).

LLC "Tomskneftekhim" was opened after the transformation of TNHK in 2003. It is a subsidiary of PJSC SIBUR-Holding, which is one of the backbone enterprises of the Russian Federation. The size of Tomskneftekhim's authorized capital was Rb6.5 billion in 2019, sales revenue - Rb13.2 billion, net profit - Rb1.9 billion.
MRC