Chemours Q4 profit climbs

Chemours Q4 profit climbs

MOSCOW (MRC) -- US-based pigment and fluoroproducts producer Chemours reported a year-on-year increase in Q4 net income because of the benefit of the sale of a business, said the company.

The company reported a one-time benefit of USD112m because of the sale of its Mining Solutions business. The following table shows the company's quarterly financial performance. Chemours did not report quarterly cost of sales. For Titanium Technologies, sales volumes rose by 6% year on year despite of ore and logistics constraints. Prices rose 19%.

The segment makes titanium dioxide (TiO2). For Thermal & Specialized Solutions, volumes fell 11% because lower demand from automobile original equipment manufacturers (OEM). Automobile producers have lowered production because of a shortage of semiconductor chips.

Meanwhile, prices contributed 19%. The segment makes fluorochemicals including Opteon hydrofluoroolefins (HFOs)

For Advanced Performance Materials, demand continued to exceed the company's ability to supply. Volumes rose by 15% and prices by 10%. The segment makes fluoropolymers such as Teflon. Segment sales fell because of the sale of the Mining Solutions business.

Chemical Solutions makes glycolic acid. For 2022, Chemours expects to report adjusted EBITDA of USD1.3bn-1.425bn. Adjusted earnings/share should be USD4.07-4.70. For comparison, 2021 adjusted EBITDA was USD1.313bn and adjusted earnings/share was USD4.00.

As per MRC, Chemours says it is looking to achieve a 60% absolute reduction of operations-related greenhouse gas emissions by 2030, and net zero greenhouse gas emissions by 2050. In addition to refrigerants, Chemours is a major producer of titanium dioxide, industrial fluoropolymer resins and derivatives and other chemical solutions.

As MRC informed before, in December 2019, Chemours announced plans to sell its methylamines and methylamides unit to Belle Chemical, an affiliate of Cornerstone Chemical. The sales price was not disclosed. Thus, Chemours had signed a letter of commitment with Belle Chemical Co. to sell Chemours' methylamines and methylamides business and production facilities at the Belle location. Earlier in 2019, Chemours announced it would stop making methylamines and methylamides at the plant. In 2020, it planned to start dismantling the methylamines operations. Once Belle takes possession of the plant, most of the employees at Belle and others assigned in supporting roles at other locations will become part of Belle, Chemours said. Cornerstone makes acrylonitrile (ACN) and melamine at Fortier, Louisiana.

Chemours is a global leader in titanium technologies, fluoroproducts and chemical solutions, providing its customers in a wide range of industries with market-defining products, application expertise and chemistry-based innovations. Chemours ingredients are found in plastics and coatings, refrigeration and air conditioning, mining and oil refining operations and general industrial manufacturing. Chemours has approximately 9,000 employees across 37 manufacturing sites serving more than 5,000 customers in North America, Latin America, Asia-Pacific and Europe. Chemours is headquartered in Wilmington, Del.
MRC

Songwon partners with Omya for PVC additives distribution in Latin America

Songwon partners with Omya for PVC additives distribution in Latin America

MOSCOW (MRC) -- Songwon Industrial Co., Ltd., announces that it has entered an exclusive partnership for Latin America with Omya, according to SpecialChem.

As part of the agreement, effective January 2022, Omya will provide marketing and sales, customer service as well as distribution and logistics for SONGWON’s complete range of polyvinyl chlorie (PVC) additives to customers across the Latin American region.

“With its extensive distribution network, strong service capabilities and solid reputation, we are confident that the Omya team can drive SONGWON’s PVC business in this region and that our Latin American customers will receive excellent support and service,” said Joe Vermeersch, sales manager TPU, TIN & PVC, Songwon International-Americas, Inc.

As MRC informed before, in March 2021, Songwon Industrial Co., Ltd. the 2nd largest manufacturer of polymer stabilizers in the world, and key global player in the specialty chemicals business announced that it had made further changes to its leadership structure to streamline the company moving forward. The changes have been implemented to support faster decisions, simplified processes and enable SONGWON to increase its agility by returning to its traditionally lean organizational structure.

According to MRC'ss ScanPlast report, Russia's overall PVC production reached 87,100 tonnes in 2021, down by 3% year on year. Three producers slightly decreased their output,

Headquartered in Ulsan (South Korea), Songwon Industrial Co is a leader in the development, production and supply of specialty chemicals. The second largest manufacturer of polymer stabilisers worldwide, Songwon operates group companies all over the world, offering the combined benefits of a global framework and readily accessible local organisations.
MRC

Dow appoints new president for business in Europe

Dow appoints new president for business in Europe

MOSCOW (MRC) -- Katja Wodjereck, who is responsible for the business area in Europe, the Middle East, Africa and India at Dow Industrial Solutions, will also assume the position of President of Dow Germany, Austria and Switzerland from February, said the company.

Wodjereck will also become CEO of Dow in Germany. She succeeds Ralf Brinkmann, who will leave the company at the end of March after 30 years with the company to pursue new tasks.

For Dow, Germany plays a central political and economic role in the implementation of the company's strategic sustainability goals. “In recent years, Ralf Brinkmann has successfully set the course for the future development of Dow in Germany. We are pleased to have Katja Wodjereck as a successor who brings extensive experience from different business areas to best support the goals of the Green Deal and our sustainability strategy," said Neil Carr, Executive Vice President and President Dow EMEAI.

Katja Wodjereck began her career at Dow in 2001 in sales at the then German headquarters in Schwalbach. During her 20+ year career, she has held various leadership positions in Sales, Marketing and Product/Asset Management for different business areas and market segments in Europe and Latin America, including Packaging & Specialty Plastics, Energy and Microbial, Gas & Mining and most recently Industrial Solutions. She has also managed the Group's sustainability activities for the EMEAI region for the last two years. Wodjereck holds a degree in International Business Management from the Trier University of Applied Sciences and the Universidad Vina del Mar Chile as well as an MBA from the Northwood University Executive MBA program. Born in Augsburg, she represents Dow on the board of the European Petrochemical Association (EPCA).

Ralf Brinkmann has worked at Dow since 1992 in various managerial positions in the chemicals and plastics business in Europe and the USA. From 2010 to 2014, the business graduate was President of Dow in Germany for the first time, then moved to the head of the Dow Consumer Care division and then managed the global business for Dow Building & Construction. Since 2018 he has served as President D/A/CH, Eastern Europe, Russia, Italy and CEO of Dow in Germany and was instrumental in coordinating the spin-off of Dow's specialty chemicals business in Europe following the merger between Dow and DuPont.

As per MRC, Dow Chemical, one of the largest US petrochemical companies, has begun bringing operations back online "as third-party utility balances and raw materials availability allow". Dow said its Taft operations were "making progress" toward restarting, and the company expected to have a clearer timeline for resumption of production in the coming days based on repairs and as access to power and raw materials allow.

As MRC wrote earlier, Dow Chemical began the process of restarting operations at its cracker No.7 in Freeport (Freeport, TX, USA) on 19 July, 2021, after a technological disruption on 4 July, 2021.

Dow Chemical is an American diversified chemical company headquartered in Midland, Michigan. It is a major manufacturer of polymer products, including polystyrene, polyurethane, polyethylene, polypropylene and synthetic rubbers. The company produces more than five thousand products at 188 production facilities in 37 countries.

MRC

Najaf appointed acting president of SOCAR

Najaf appointed acting president of SOCAR

MOSCOW (MRC) -- Azerbaijani president Ilham Aliyev has appointed first deputy minister of the economy Rovshan Najaf as acting president of state-owned oil, gas and petrochemicals group SOCAR, said Azeridaily.

Najaf, 39, takes over from Rovnag Abdullayev, who led SOCAR as president for 16 years but, according to a decree issued by Aliyev on Thursday, will move to the economy ministry, where, like Najaf, he will serve as a deputy minister.

Najaf has a master’s degree in economic policy management and international energy management and policy from Columbia University.

Rovshan Najaf has been relieved of the post of First Deputy Economy Minister of Azerbaijan. Also, R. Najaf was removed from the Supervisory Board of the State Oil Company by order of the President of Azerbaijan.

By order of the President of the country dated August 28, 2019, he was appointed Chairman of the Board of the Financial Monitoring Service, by order dated February 11, 2020 - Deputy Minister of Economy.

Earlier it was reported that in April 2021, SOCAR Polymer introduced two new grades of polypropylene block copolymer, the first in the company's portfolio that use Milliken Chemical's Hyperform HPN additive for polypropylene (PP). Over the past year, the two companies have been jointly developing these materials. SOCAR, located in Azerbaijan, offers them to customers in Russia, Turkey and other countries of the Commonwealth of Independent States.

SOCAR Polymer was established in 2013 and operates two polymer production facilities with all the necessary infrastructure: a polypropylene production workshop with a capacity of 184,000 tons per year using Spheripol technology (LyondellBasell license) and a HDPE production workshop with a design capacity of 120,000 tons per year using technology Innovene S (INEOS license). After the first export of products in October 2018, SOCAR Polymer continues to expand the geography of its sales, supplying goods to the markets of Russia, Turkey, Ukraine, Belarus, Lithuania, Poland, Uzbekistan, China, Turkmenistan, Georgia, Austria and Romania.
MRC

Lotte Chemical & KAIST open new rcentre to conduct research on reduction of carbon emissions

Lotte Chemical & KAIST open new rcentre to conduct research on reduction of carbon emissions

MOSCOW (MRC) -- Lotte Chemical basic materials division president Hwang Jin-koo, KAIST president Lee Kwang Hyung, and others attended the ‘Lotte Chemical-KAIST Carbon Neutral Research Center’ opening ceremony held at the KAIST Energy Environment Research Center, according to SpecialChem.

The Lotte Chemical-KAIST Carbon Neutral Research Center selects technological development and economic feasibility analysis projects to conduct research in fields such as production of clean hydrogen through pyrolysis and electrolysis of waste plastics, eco-friendly naphtha production technologies, liquid organic hydrogen storage and vehicle technologies, optimization of clean hydrogen production price and reduction of carbon emissions through LCA (life-cycle assessment), etc.

Lotte Chemical will invest a total of 2 billion KRW for research expenses over the next three years until 2024 for research and development, and KAIST in Daejeon will construct an exclusive research area and install experimentation equipment, etc. for technological development.

Professor Lee Jae-woo of the KAIST department of chemical and biomolecular engineering was appointed as the director of the Carbon Neutral Research Center, and it will be joined by five professors and 23 master’s and doctorate’s level personnel. In addition, senior researchers and researchers of Lotte Chemical will also participate as members.

Lotte Chemical basic materials division president Hwang Jin-koo stated, “It is difficult for a company to solve the formidable challenge of realizing carbon neutrality alone,” adding, “We will create the two solutions of procuring future technologies and finding talented human resources through R&D on key eco-friendly technologies together with KAIST that is made up of the nation’s best researchers.”

Meanwhile, Lotte Chemical plans to speed up the pursuit of commercialization by quickly procuring future business capacities such as hydrogen, carbon neutrality, batteries, bio, etc., in addition to its existing petrochemical business unit by reinforcing open innovation research activities with the best domestic and foreign universities, research institutes, and companies in each sector including this research investment with KAIST.

As MRC reported before, Lotte Chemical plans to take off-stream its naphtha cracker in Yeosu for a scheduled maintenance this year. The company is expected to put its Yeosu naphtha cracker under scheduled maintenance around May or June, 2022. Lotte's Yeosu naphtha cracker can produce 1.2 million tonnes per year (tpy) of ethylene.

Ethylene and propylene are the main feedstocks for the production of polyethylene (PE) and polypropylene (PP), respectively.

According to MRC's ScanPlast report, Russia's estimated PE consumption totalled 2,265,290 tonnes in the first eleven months of 2021, up by 14% year on year. Shipments of all grades of ethylene polymers increased. At the same time, PP shipments to the Russian market were 1,363,850 tonnes in January-November, 2021, up by 25% year on year. Supply of homopolymer PP and block-copolymers of propylene (PP block copolymers) increased, whereas supply of injection moulding PP random copolymers decreased significantly.

Lotte Chemical runs two naphtha crackers in South Korea. One cracker is located in Daesan county in Seosan which can produce 1.1 million tonnes per year of ethylene with the other 1.2 million tonnes per year cracker in the southwestern city of Yeosu.
MRC