Huntsman Executive Vice President and Chief Financial Officer resigns

MOSCOW (MRC) -- -- Huntsman Corporation has announced that Sean Douglas, 56, has notified the company he intends to resign as Executive Vice President and Chief Financial Officer (CFO), as per the company's press release.

The effective date of Mr. Douglas' resignation will be July 1, 2021.

Thus, Huntsman has initiated a search for a permanent CFO with the credibility, capability, and qualifications to continue effective execution of its financial and business strategies and is evaluating both internal and external candidates at this time.

As MRC informed earlier, in late December, 2020, SK Capital Partners completed the acquisition of a 39.75% stake, roughly 42.4 million shares, in titanium dioxide maker Venator from Huntsman for roughly USD100 million. The deal includes a 30-month option for the purchase of Huntsman’s remaining approximate 9.5 million shares by SK at US2.15/share. Huntsman spun off Venator in a 2017 initial public offering.

We remind that Nanjing Jinling Huntsman, a joint venture between Huntsman and Sinopec Jinling, shut its propylene oxide plant in Nanjing (Nanjing, Jiangsu Province, China) on November 1, 2020, for scheduled maintenance. This plant with a capacity of 240,000 tonnes/year of propylene oxide was closed until approximately 25 November.

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

According to MRC's ScanPlast report, Russia's estimated PE consumption totalled 241,030 tonnes in January 2021 versus 217,890 tonnes a year earlier. Only shipments of low density polyethylene (LDPE) and high density polyethylene (HDPE) increased. At the same time, PP shipments to the Russian market reached 141,870 tonnes in January 2021 versus 123,520 tonnes a year earlier. Supply of homopolymer PP and PP block copolymers increased.

Huntsman Corporation is a publicly traded global manufacturer and marketer of differentiated and specialty chemicals with 2019 revenues of approximately USD7 billion. The company's chemical products number in the thousands and are sold worldwide to manufacturers serving a broad and diverse range of consumer and industrial end markets. The company operates more than 70 manufacturing, R&D and operations facilities in approximately 30 countries and employ approximately 9,000 associates within our four distinct business divisions.
MRC

MOSCOW (MRC) -- RusGazDobycha, a business partner of Russian gas giant Gazprom, plans to start building a chemical plant as part of a massive gas processing cluster on the shores of the Baltic Sea, later this month, RusGazDobycha said on Friday.

The cluster is designed to process annually 45 billion cubic metres of natural gas, produce 13 million tons of LNG, 3.6 million tons of ethane and up to 1.8 million tons of LPG.

A first stage of the cluster is set to come on stream in 2024, while the second is to be launched in 2025.

RusGazDobycha did not disclose financial details for the project that is in part financed by the Russian state, including by the VEB corporation.

Royal Dutch Shell RDSa.L quit the project in 2019 after Gazprom integrated the Baltic LNG project and gas processing plants and added a partner with links to an ally of Russian President Vladimir Putin.

As MRC reported earlier, in late March 2021, Gazprom and the industrial gases major Linde have signed an agreement of intent for Ust-Liga gas processing complex cooperation. The document outlines the main terms and conditions of a prospective EPSS contract providing for engineering services, equipment supplies, and maintenance of gas processing and off-site facilities, Gazprom informed in its statement.

Gazprom and RusGazDobycha are implementing the project near the settlement of Ust-Luga, with the RusKhimAlyans as the project operator. It is the anchor project of the major gas processing and chemical cluster that is being established in the region.

We remind that in February 2020, Linde signed a contact for the provision of services for the design and construction of a part of the Amur Gas Chemical Complex (AGHK) of SIBUR. The services will be provided as part of a consortium with NIPIgaz, part of the SIBUR structure.

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

According to MRC's ScanPlast report, Russia's estimated PE consumption totalled 241,030 tonnes in January 2021 versus 217,890 tonnes a year earlier. Only shipments of low density polyethylene (LDPE) and high density polyethylene (HDPE) increased. At the same time, PP shipments to the Russian market reached 141,870 tonnes in January 2021 versus 123,520 tonnes a year earlier. Supply of homopolymer PP and PP block copolymers increased.
MRC

MOSCOW (MRC) -- Operations at Indonesia’s state oil company PT Pertamina’s 125,000 barrel-per-day refinery in Balongan may return to normal this week, following a fire in some parts of the refinery, reported Reuters with reference to a company director's statement to parliament.

The fire broke out just after midnight last Monday, forcing Pertamina to shut the plant and evacuate around 950 nearby residents. Ten people are being treated in hospital from the effects of the fire.

“For primary processing, it is already operating normally, and a start-up for secondary processing is being carried out,” Djoko Priyono, the director of Pertamina’s refinery arm, Pertamina Kilang Internasional, said.

“It is hoped that by the end of this week, we can return to normal,” he said.

The company had began the restart process at the refinery on March 31, two days after the fire broke out, a Pertamina spokesman, Ifki Sukarya, told Reuters earlier on Monday.

The cause of the fire is still being investigated, Pertamina CEO, Nicke Widyawati told parliament at the same hearing.

As MRC informed before, only four storage tanks were affected, out of the total 72 tanks in Balongan with total capacity of 1.35 million kilo litres.

We remind that PT Pertamina shut its cracker in Indonesia for maintenance works from 18 March, 2020. This cracker with a production capacity of 578,000 tons remained off-stream until 18 April 2020.

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

According to MRC's ScanPlast report, Russia's estimated PE consumption totalled 241,030 tonnes in January 2021 versus 217,890 tonnes a year earlier. Only shipments of low density polyethylene (LDPE) and high density polyethylene (HDPE) increased. At the same time, PP shipments to the Russian market reached 141,870 tonnes in January 2021 versus 123,520 tonnes a year earlier. Supply of homopolymer PP and PP block copolymers increased.

Pertamina is an Indonesian state-owned oil and natural gas corporation based in Jakarta. It was created in August 1968 by the merger of Pertamin (established 1961) and Permina (established 1957). Pertamina is the world's largest producer and exporter of liquefied natural gas (LNG).
MRC

MOSCOW (MRC) -- Dozens of Iraqi protesters blocked the entrance to the Nassiriya oil refinery in southern Iraq, a refinery source and a Reuters witness said.

The blockade caused fuel shortages across the southern province of Dhi Qar, with many petrol stations running dry and long queues at the few stations that were still open.

More than 200 unemployed university graduates who had a staged a weeks-long sit-in outside the refinery to demand jobs blocked the entrance and prevented employees from entering the building when the Iraqi parliament passed the budget on Wednesday without addressing their unemployment issue.

The province was unable to produce and refine crude oil and oil derivatives after the refinery's closure, which has a maximum production capacity of 30,000 barrels per day (bpd), the refinery said in a statement without giving further details.

As MRC wrote before, Indian Oil Corp (IOC) , the country's top refiner, has loaded its first cargo of Iraq's newly introduced Basra Medium crude grade, according to ship tracking data from Refinitiv Eikon. IOC loaded the cargo onto Minerva Kalypso, a suezmax-sized vessel, which left Iraq's southern port of Basra on Jan. 4, the data showed. The ship was expected to arrive at Chennai port in southeastern India for IOC's subsidiary Chennai Petroleum Corp (CPCL) around Jan. 14.

We remind that Indian Oil Corp has been operating at 100% capacity since early November, 2020, as local fuel demand has recovered, its chairman S.M. Vaidya said late last year. IOC has been gradually raising crude runs at its plants, which plunged to about 39% at the beginning of April, 2020, when a nationwide coronavirus lockdown hit fuel demand.

We also remind that IOC is expanding its petrochemical capacity by more than 70% from its current 3.2 million tonnes a year. It is also on new technologies that reduces the cost of producing petrochemicals.

According to MRC's ScanPlast report, Russia's estimated PE consumption totalled 241,030 tonnes in January 2021 versus 217,890 tonnes a year earlier. Only shipments of low density polyethylene (LDPE) and high density polyethylene (HDPE) increased. At the same time, PP shipments to the Russian market reached 141,870 tonnes in January 2021 versus 123,520 tonnes a year earlier. Supply of homopolymer PP and PP block copolymers increased.
MRC

MOSCOW (MRC) -- Royal Dutch Shell Plc restarted the small crude distillation unit (CDU) on Friday at its 318,000-bpd joint-venture Deer Park, Texas, refinery, said sources familiar with plant operations, said Hydrocarbonprocessing.

The 70,000-bpd DU-1 CDU was shut on Feb 14 by a pump seal failure, the sources said. All other units were shut the following day by severe cold weather.

DU-1 is the last unit shut in February to restart at the refinery.

As per MRC, Royal Dutch Shell reported an outage at its olefins plant in Deer Park, Texas, on 5 January, 2021. The plant flared for 16 hours last Tuesday following unspecified process upset. Maximum steam cracker operating rate in Texas falls to 89%.

As per MRC, Russia's output of chemical products rose in February 2021 by 5.3% year on year. Thus, production of basic chemicals increased year on year by 7.5% in the first two months of 2021. According to the Federal State Statistics Service of the Russian Federation, mineral fertilizers accounted for the greatest increase in the January-February output. Production of benzene dropped to 113,000 tonnes in February 2021, compared to 120,000 tonnes a month earlier. Overall output of this product reached 241,000 tonnes over the stated period, down by 7.5% year on year.

Royal Dutch Shell plc is an Anglo-Dutch multinational oil and gas company headquartered in The Hague, Netherlands and with its registered office in London, United Kingdom. It is the biggest company in the world in terms of revenue and one of the six oil and gas "supermajors". Shell is vertically integrated and is active in every area of the oil and gas industry, including exploration and production, refining, distribution and marketing, petrochemicals, power generation and trading.
MRC