Epsilyte hikes EPS prices for second consecutive month

MOSCOW (MRC) -- Expandable polystyrene (EPS) resin producer Epsilyte (The Woodlands, Texas) is hiking prices for the second month in a row for all grades of EPS by 4 cents/pound, effective 1 February 2021 or as contracts permit, said Chemweek.

The price rise “is necessary based on the need for the business to achieve reinvestment economics,” it says. The company announced a price increase in December on all its EPS grades, effective 1 January 2021, saying that rise was necessary based on supply and demand dynamics, as well as the need for reinvestment economics.

According to MRC's ScanPlast, in Russia, the estimated consumption of PS and styrene plastics for the eleven months of 2020 amounted to 454.990 tonnes, which corresponds to the consumption indicator for the same period last year. The estimated consumption of PS and styrene plastics in the country in November increased by 4% compared to the same month of 2019 and amounted to 45,830 tonnes.

Epsilyte is owned by private equity firm Balmoral Funds (Los Angeles, California).
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MOSCOW (MRC) -- Solvay says it has accelerated changes that form part of the company’s G.R.O.W. strategy, announced at the end of 2019, due to the “new economic reality linked to COVID-19”, reported Chemweek.

The strategy involves a reorganization of the company's businesses and efficiency improvements to create a new operating model and simplified portfolio. When announcing the strategy, Solvay said it was targeting cost cuts of EUR300-350 million (USD366-427 million) by 2024. G.R.O.W. stands for “growth, resilient cash, optimize, win.”

Solvay says in a statement emailed to CW on Wednesday that it is re-examining its business support activities, which has accelerated the changes. These activities include human resources, facilities, information technology, communications, finance, procurement, industrial, strategy, and legal functions.

“In the new operating model, corporate functions and business support activities will be led centrally and deployed locally as needed, sharing the same global standards, processes, and tools across the board and leveraging operational efficiency within the group,” the statement says.

The decision to implement the new operating model for business support activities will be taken after a consulting phase, Solvay says. The implementation should start in the second quarter of 2021 and be fully implemented by mid-2022, it says.

Solvay issued the statement in response to Belgian press reports that it plans to cut hundreds of jobs as part of a restructuring plan. Newspaper De Tijd reports that an unidentified source has said 900 jobs would be affected. Solvay, which has a workforce of about 24,000, reportedly informed employees and trade unions of its plans on Wednesday morning.

As MRC informed earlier, in August, 2020, through the acquisition of the Solvay polyamide (PA) business, BASF enhanced its R&D capabilities in Asia Pacific with new technologies, technical expertise, and upgraded material and part testing services. BASF is planning to integrate the R&D centers from Solvay into its R&D existing facilities in Shanghai, China, and Seoul, Korea. The enhanced capabilities will boost BASF’s position as a solution provider to develop advanced material solutions for key industries.

We remind that BASF-YPC, a 50-50 joint venture of BASF and Sinopec, undertook a planned shutdown at its naphtha cracker on 30 April 2020. The company initially planned to start turnaround at the cracker on April 5, 2020. The plant remained under maintenance unitl 18 June, 2020. Located in Jiangsu, China, the cracker has an ethylene capacity of 750,000 mt/year and propylene capacity of 400,000 mt/year.

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

According to MRC's DataScope report, PE imports to Russia decreased in January-November 2020 by 17% year on year and reached 569,900 tonnes. High density polyethylene (HDPE) accounted for the greatest reduction in imports. At the same time, PP imports into Russia increased by 21% year on year to about 202,000 tonnes in the first eleven months of 2020. Propylene homopolymer (homopolymer PP) accounted for the main increase in imports.

Solvay is a science company whose technologies bring benefits to many aspects of daily life. With more than 24,100 employees in 64 countries, Solvay bonds people, ideas and elements to reinvent progress. The Group seeks to create sustainable shared value for all, notably through its Solvay One Planet plan crafted around three pillars: protecting the climate, preserving resources and fostering better life. The Group’s innovative solutions contribute to safer, cleaner, and more sustainable products found in homes, food and consumer goods, planes, cars, batteries, smart devices, health care applications, water and air purification systems. Founded in 1863, Solvay today ranks among the world’s top three companies for the vast majority of its activities and delivered net sales of EUR10.2 billion in 2019. Solvay is listed on Euronext Brussels (SOLB) and Paris and in the United States, where its shares (SOLVY) are traded through a Level I ADR program.
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MOSCOW (MRC) -- Oil producers face an unprecedented challenge to balance supply and demand as factors including the pace and response to COVID-19 vaccines cloud the outlook, reported Reuters with reference to an official with International Energy Agency's (IEA) statement.

"Producers are grappling with huge uncertainty about where this goes from here," Tim Gould, head of energy supply outlooks and investment, told the Gulf Intelligence forum.

"That's not just in terms of economic recovery but indicators we wouldn't necessarily normally be looking at: (such as the) levels of trust in different countries about vaccines."

OPEC and allied countries such as Russia agreed this month to cut crude production through March in a bid to match abundant supply with demand which has sagged amid surging virus cases while vaccination programs get underway.

While the pandemic has prompted some energy majors and watchdogs to predict that a peak in the world's demand for oil has been brought nearer or may have already come and gone in 2019, Gould said the IEA disagreed.

"As things stand, with the pace of change we see on the structural side is not enough in our view to deliver a peak anytime soon."

"Growth in the economy, recovery in the economy will sooner or later bring oil demand back to 2019 levels. The 2020s in our view are the last decade in which you're likely to see increasing oil demand," he added.

As MRC wrote earlier, the COVID-19 outbreak has led to an unprecedented decline in demand affecting all sections of the Russian economy, which has impacted the demand for petrochemicals in the short-term. However, the pandemic triggered an increase in the demand for polymers in food packaging, and cleaning and hygiene products, according to GlobalData, a leading data and analytics company. With Russian petrochemical companies having the advantage of access to low-cost feedstock, and proximity to demand-rich Asian (primarily China) and European markets for the supply of petrochemical products, these companies appear to be well-positioned to derive full benefits from an improving market environment and global economy post-COVID-19, says GlobalData.

We remind that in December 2020, Sibur, Gazprom Neft, and Uzbekneftegaz agreed to cooperate on potential investments in Uzbekistan including a major expansion of Uzbekneftegaz’s existing Shurtan Gas Chemical Complex (SGCC) and the proposed construction of a new gas chemicals facility. The signed cooperation agreement for the projects includes “the creation of a gas chemical complex using methanol-to-olefins (MTO) technology, and the expansion of the production capacity of the Shurtan Gas Chemical Complex”.

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

According to MRC's DataScope report, PE imports to Russia decreased in January-November 2020 by 17% year on year and reached 569,900 tonnes. High density polyethylene (HDPE) accounted for the greatest reduction in imports. At the same time, PP imports into Russia increased by 21% year on year to about 202,000 tonnes in the first eleven months of 2020. Propylene homopolymer (homopolymer PP) accounted for the main increase in imports.
MRC

MOSCOW (MRC) -- Methanex (Vancouver, Canada) will idle its 875,000-metric tons/day Titan methanol facility in Couva, Trinidad, “indefinitely” and is restructuring its operations there to support a “one-plant operation,” it says, said Chemweek.

The company halted production at Titan on 16 March 2020 due to the COVID-19-related downturn in manufacturing activity globally. Today’s announced restructure will result in the loss of approximately 60 jobs for employees and long-term contractors in Trinidad, it says.

Methanex’s other methanol facility in Trinidad, the Atlas plant also at Couva, will not be affected by the restructure and “continues to operate as it is underpinned by a separate natural gas supply agreement that expires in 2024,” it says. The company operates the 1.822-million metric tons/year (MMt/y) Atlas plant and holds a 63.1% ownership stake in it, with BP owning the remaining 37%.

Methanex says it has so far been unable to reach an agreement for an economic longer-term supply of natural gas feedstock for the Titan facility. The company has been in negotiations with The National Gas Company of Trinidad and Tobago (NGC) following the expiry of the previous supply contract at the end of 2019. “Given that the economic recovery path remains uncertain, we believe it is prudent to reduce costs while continuing our efforts to secure longer-term gas supply,” it says.

The company remains committed to doing business in Trinidad and Tobago and believes it will be able to secure an economic longer-term gas agreement for Titan “in the coming years,” says Methanex CEO John Floren. “We are taking the necessary steps to maintain Titan to ensure a safe and efficient restart of the plant when a longer-term gas agreement is reached,” he says.

Methanex also idled its Chile IV methanol plant on 1 April last year but Floren said in November the company was restarting the facility as global methanol demand was improving. The Titan and Chile IV plants account for 19% of Methanex’s methanol capacity of 9.2 MMt/y. It also announced in April it was delaying construction on its USD1.4-billion Geismar 3 methanol project in Louisiana by up to 18 months and placing it on temporary “care and maintenance,” deferring approximately USD500 million of previously announced capital spending.

The company reported a third-quarter 2020 net loss of USD88 million in November, following a loss of USD65 million in the second quarter.

As MRC informed previously, global oil demand may have already peaked, according to BP"s latest long-term energy outlook issued in September 2020, as the COVID-19 pandemic kicks the world economy onto a weaker growth trajectory and accelerates the shift to cleaner fuels.

Earlier last year, BP said the deadly coronavirus outbreak could cut global oil demand growth by 40% in 2020, putting pressure on Opec producers and Russia to curb supplies to keep prices in check.

And in September 2019, six world"s major petrochemical companies in Flanders, Belgium, North Rhine-Westphalia, Germany, and the Netherlands (Trilateral Region) announced the creation of a consortium to jointly investigate how naphtha or gas steam crackers could be operated using renewable electricity instead of fossil fuels. The Cracker of the Future consortium, which includes BASF, Borealis, BP, LyondellBasell, SABIC and Total, aims to produce base chemicals while also significantly reducing carbon emissions. The companies agreed to invest in R&D and knowledge sharing as they assess the possibility of transitioning their base chemical production to renewable electricity.

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

According to MRC"s DataScope report, PE imports to Russia decreased in January-November 2020 by 17% year on year and reached 569,900 tonnes. High density polyethylene (HDPE) accounted for the greatest reduction in imports. At the same time, PP imports into Russia increased by 21% year on year to about 202,000 tonnes in the first eleven months of 2020. Propylene homopolymer (homopolymer PP) accounted for the main increase in imports.

MRC

MOSCOW (MRC) -- OQ Chemicals (Monheim am Rhein, Germany) has announced price increases in the Americas for its oxo intermediate products due to strong demand and increasing raw material costs, according to Chemweek.

The rise in prices for oxo alcohols and oxo acetate esters is effective as of 1 February 2021 or as contracts allow.

In North America and Mexico, the price of 2-ethylhexanol (2-EH) will increase by USD0.07/lb, while n-butanol, isobutanol, n-butyl acetate, and isobutyl acetate will rise by USD0.06/lb. N-propanol and n-propyl acetate prices will increase by USD0.05/lb.

In South America the price of 2-EH is being increased by USD154/metric ton, while n-butanol, isobutanol, n-butyl acetate, and isobutyl acetate will rise by USD132/metric ton. Prices for n-propanol and n-propyl acetate are being increased by USD110/metric ton.

OQ also raised prices on 1 January for oxo intermediates due to rising raw material costs and increased demand.

As MRC reported earlier, in September 2020, OQ Chemicals entered into an agreement to license its advanced proprietary technology for the production of ethylene and propylene derivatives to Duqm Refinery and Petrochemicals Industries Company (DRPIC) in Oman. DRPIC, a joint venture between Oman Oil Company and Kuwait International Oil Company, is a planned grassroots petrochemical complex at Duqm, Oman. In all, DRPIC awarded twelve license packages to international licensors.

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

According to MRC's DataScope report, PE imports to Russia decreased in January-November 2020 by 17% year on year and reached 569,900 tonnes. High density polyethylene (HDPE) accounted for the greatest reduction in imports. At the same time, PP imports into Russia increased by 21% year on year to about 202,000 tonnes in the first eleven months of 2020. Propylene homopolymer (homopolymer PP) accounted for the main increase in imports.

OQ Chemicals, formerly Oxea, is a global manufacturer of oxo intermediates and oxo derivatives, such as alcohols, polyols, carboxylic acids, specialty esters, and amines. These products are used for the production of high-quality coatings, lubricants, cosmetics and pharmaceutical products, flavours and fragrances, printing inks and plastics. OQ Chemicals is part of OQ, an integrated energy company that delivers sustainability and business excellence. OQ operates in 16 countries and covers the entire value chain from exploration and production to the marketing and distribution of its products.
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