MOSCOW (MRC) -- Royal Dutch Shell on Thursday confirmed a Reuters report that the sale of its controlling interest in a Texas refinery to Mexican state oil company Petroleos Mexicanos has been delayed until next year, reported Reuters.
A review of the deal by the Committee on Foreign Investment in the United States, an national security group chaired by the US Treasury, had been expected to wrap up this month but has been extended into next year, Shell spokesperson Curtis Smith said.
Shell in May disclosed an agreement to sell its 50% interest in the 302,800-barrel-per-day (bpd) Deer Park, Texas, refinery outside Houston to partner Pemex for about $596 million. The closing was expected this month, officials have said.
“We were hopeful we could conclude the sale before the end of the month, however, it now looks like the full amount of time will be needed,” Smith said. “We will continue to cooperate with CFIUS as they review the transaction.”
Pemex was not immediately available to comment.
The delay signals CFIUS has moved past its initial 45-day review and into a second, investigative period. The committee is charged with reviewing sales of critical US infrastructure to foreign buyers for national security implications.
The second phase does not signal a potential rejection by the security group. Questions raised during the inital review can be resolved with a letter of agreement or a mitigation agreement, according to a former CFIUS official not involved in the Pemex review.
As MRC informed previously, Royal Dutch Shell plc. said in November that its petrochemical complex of several billion dollars in Western Pennsylvania is about 70% complete and in the process to enter service in the early 2020s. The plant's costs are estimated to be USD6-USD10 billion, where ethane will be transformed into plastic feedstock. The facility is equipped to produce 1.5 million metric tons per year (mmty) of ethylene and 1.6 mmty of polyethylene (PE), two important constituents of plastics.
Ethylene and propylene are feedstocks for producing PE and polypropylene (PP).
According to MRC's ScanPlast report, Russia's estimated PE consumption totalled 2,047,100 tonnes in the first ten months of 2021, up by 17% year on year. Shipments of all grades of ethylene polymers increased. At the same time, PP shipments to the Russian market were 1,226,530 tonnes in January-October 2021, up by 26% year on year. Supply of propylene homopolymers (homopolymer PP) and block-copolymers of propylene (PP block copolymers) increased, whereas supply of injection moulding stat-copolymers of propylene (PP random copolymers) decreased significantly.
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.
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