Williams Partners to acquire Williams Gulf Olefins business

(chemicals-technology) -- Williams Partners has signed an agreement with Williams to purchase the company's 83% undivided interest in the Geismar olefins production facility, a refinery-grade propylene splitter, for USD2.264bn, apart from the Gulf region's pipelines for USD100m.

"Williams Partners expects that the addition of olefins production to its business will increase distributable cash flow."
In addition to acquisitions, Williams Partners will also complete the ongoing expansion of the Geismar facility and additional pipelines, which are expected to cost nearly USD270m and USD160m respectively.

As part of the agreement, Williams will temporarily waiver nearly USD16m per quarter of general partner incentive distribution rights (IDRs) until the later date of 31 December 2013, or 30 days after the Geismar plant expansion becomes operational. It also estimates the IDRs will last for five quarters, totalling USD80m.

Williams Partners general partner chief executive officer Alan Armstrong said: "The addition of the Geismar facility to Williams Partners' portfolio immediately reduces the partnership's exposure to the over-supplied ethane markets by nearly 70% and eliminates it by 2014, while increasing our ability to produce globally marketed ethylene."

Williams, which currently owns approximately 66% of Williams Partners including the general-partner interest, will own approximately 70% percent of Williams Partners following the closure of the transaction. The transaction is expected to close in early November 2012, according to the company.

Williams Partners L.P. is a leading diversified master limited partnership focused on natural gas transportation; gathering, treating, and processing; storage; natural gas liquid (NGL) fractionation; and oil transportation.
MRC

(petrolworld) -- Energy company Valero has reported a 44% decline in third quarter net profit after weak margins in its refining operations a once-off charge booked on converting an Aruban refining complex into a storage facility dragged down its earnings.

Valero was forced to pay an impairment charge of USD341 million as a result of its decision to go ahead with the conversion, while USD41m had to be paid to workers as part of severance pay packages for ex-workers.

Overall net income was reported at USD674m for the quarter (July to September), down from USD1.2bn recorded at the same time last year.

The company, which operates 16 refineries and 6,800 convenience stores across the North American mainland and the Caribbean, said that its retail income dropped from USD97m a year ago to USD41m, mainly because of lower margins.

Shares in Valero have been suspended temporarily because of the damage caused by the arrival of Hurricane Sandy.

MRC

(hydrocarbonprocessing) -- Eni SpA, Italian multinational oil and gas company and Italy's biggest energy company by market value, is less enthusiastic now about its operations in Iraq than when it entered the Arabic country after the end of Saddam Hussein's regime, CEO Paolo Scaroni said Wednesday.

Eni's issues with Iraq are its high bureaucracy, limited energy infrastructure and the political situation with the Kurdistan region that follows its own policy when it comes to hydrocarbon activities, according to Mr. Scaroni.

Eni has invested between USD4 billion and USD5 billion so far in its Iraqi activities out of the planned USD18 billion, Mr. Scaroni said.

The Italian company ruled out leaving its activities in Iraq to move to Kurdistan, Mr. Scaroni added, referring to ExxonMobil trying to sell its activities in Southern Iraq to start a drilling effort in the Kurdistan region.

We remind that Eni has recently signed an agreement with Honam Petrochemical for the development of an elastomeric plant at a South Korean facility of the Asian company, as the Italian company seeks to turn around its chemicals subsidiary Versalis.
MRC

(business) -- US energy giant ExxonMobil has reported a smaller-than-expected dip in profit for the third quarter on falling production and sales.

Net income for the July-September quarter dropped 7.0% from a year earlier to USDUS9.6 billion, said Exxon Mobil. Revenue fell 7.7% to USD115.7 billion as oil equivalent production declined 7.5% in the quarter, the Irving, Texas-based company said.

ExxonMobil increased capital and exploration spending by 7.0% to USD9.2 billion, the bulk of it outside the United States.

"Third-quarter results reflect our ongoing commitment to help deliver the energy needed to underpin economic recovery and growth while maintaining our strong focus on safety and environmental performance," said chairman Rex Tillerson.

ExxonMobil is an American multinational oil and gas corporation. It is the world's largest company by revenue and one of the largest publicly traded companies by market capitalization in the world. ExxonMobil is the largest of the six oil supermajors with daily production of 3.921 million BOE.

As MRC has reported recently, ExxonMobil reported flaring at its refinery in Joliet, Illinois. The release lasted about 30 minutes, and the unit was shut down. In early October a fire broke out at the conpany's Baytown, Texas refinery to a process unit. The complex has a 584,000 bbl/day refinery and two chemical plants that make butyl rubber and polypropylene (PP), making it the largest operating refinery in the U.S. and one of the largest in the world.
MRC

(4-traders) -- Fushun Petrochemical launched its new 800Kt/a ethylene facility in China on October, 28. All the eight production units of the 1Mt/a ethylene capacity expansion project operated together and turned out qualified products, marking the full operation of Fushun Petrochemical's "10 Mt/a refining and 1Mt/a ethylene" project.

From now on, Fushun Petrochemical is capable of processing 11.5 million tonnes of crude and producing one million tonnes of ethylene per annum, and also serves as a world-class production base for paraffin, lubricant base oil, alkyl benzene and synthetic resin.

Besides, as MRC informed earlier, Fushun Petrochemical launched a new plant in Fushun, Liaoning Province, China, where it is still testing the production process. The nominal capacity of the facility is 300,000 tonnes of polypropylene (PP), 350,000 tonnes of high density polyethylene (HDPE) and 450,000 tons of linear low density polyethylene (LLDPE) per year.
MRC