French court rejects bids for Petroplus refinery

MOSCOW (MRC) -- A French court has rejected the two bids filed by companies offering to take over an oil refinery from bankrupt refiner Petroplus and ordered the liquidation of the assets ending a 15-month procedure, reported Hydrocarbonprocessing.

The Rouen court Tuesday ruled the two bids didn't ensure the viability of the Petit-Couronne refinery, which is located on the northern coast of France, a spokeswoman said.

The court considered Libya's Murzuk Oil and Dubai-based NetOil as the only potential bidders left after months of selection, but they didn't offer enough financial strength for a project that requires heavy investment, the French labor and industry ministers Michel Sapin and Arnaud Montebourg said in a joint statement.

As MRC wrote previously, in February 2013, France received five bids to buy a troubled oil refinery, including the two considered to be serious and well-finance.

The court-appointed receiver will now seek a buyer for the plant's assets and dismantle it if none is found.

The refinery was one of a series of industrial plants French President Francois Hollande had promised to protect before being elected in May 2012. The fate of the refinery has been debated since its owner, Swiss-based Petroplus Holdings, filed for protection from creditors in early 2012.

Petroplus, which operated five refineries in Europe, ran out of cash in the first day of last year after struggling for months in a market devastated by weak demand, overcapacity and cheap competition from Asia and the Middle East.

In February, 2012, Royal Dutch Shell signed a contract to hire the French refinery to process crude oil for six months. Resuming operations at the refinery, which was gradually shut down in January, required EUR50 million investment. Shell should have transferred EUR20 million to the refinery in advance of future payments to the refinery. The government should have financed the remaining EUR30 million. In December, Shell ended a six-month oil processing deal with the troubled plant and has not extended the contract, making the refinery less attractive for buyers due to expensive re-start costs.
MRC

MOSCOW (MRC) -- Wacker Polymers is to raise its prices for Vinnapas vinyl acetate-ethylene and Vinnol ethylene-vinyl chloride-based copolymer dispersions in the Americas. Effective May 1, 2013, Wacker will implement a price increase of USD0.03 per wet pound, or as customer contracts allow, said 4-traders.

This measure has been necessitated by the continued increase in raw-material cost. The price adjustment enables Wacker Polymers to continue providing customers a wide-range of innovative quality products and comprehensive technical, sales and customer support services.

Dispersions of the Vinnapas and Vinnol brand are applied in a broad variety of industries, ranging from adhesives, nonwovens, paints and coatings to paper, building products, carpet and textiles.

Wacker Polymers is a leading producer of state-of-the-art binders and polymeric additives based on polyvinyl acetate and vinyl acetate copolymers. These take the form of dispersible polymer powders, dispersions, solid resins, and solutions. They are used in construction chemicals, paints, surface coatings, adhesives and nonwovens, and in fiber composites and polymeric materials based on renewable resources. WACKER POLYMERS has production sites in Germany, China, South Korea and the USA, as well as a global sales network and technology centers in all major regions.
MRC

MOSCOW (MRC) -- Moody's Investors Service says that its decision on 16 April to change the outlook of China's sovereign rating to stable from positive has no impact on the ratings of most of the country's non-financial government-related issuers, or state-owned enterprises, reported Moody's on its site.

The non-financial GRIs that are unaffected by the outlook change are China National Offshore Oil Corporation (Aa3 stable), China Petrochemical Corporation (Aa3 stable), China Three Gorges Corporation (A1 stable), China Guangdong Nuclear Power Holding Co Ltd (A3 stable), Baosteel Group Corporation (A3 negative), Sinochem Hong Kong (Group) Company Limited (Baa1 stable) , CITIC Group Corporation (Baa2 stable), China Metallurgical Group Corporation (Baa3 stable).

"As China's sovereign rating remains at Aa3, the outlook change will not affect the likelihood of extraordinary support for these GRIs and their resultant rating uplifts," says Ivan Chung, a Moody's Vice President and Senior Credit Officer.

We remind that, as MRC informed earlier, Moody's affirmed China's government's bond rating of Aa3. The main reasons for this were a strong economic growth of the country, strong central government finances and an exceptionally strong external payments position.
MRC

MOSCOW (MRC) -- Rosneft, Russian oil giant, respects minority shareholders in TNK-BP Holding, which Rosneft acquired a majority stake in last month, and is willing to discuss their issues with them, reported The Wall Street Journal with reference to Russian First Deputy Prime Minister Igor Shuvalov.

Shares in TNK-BP have plummeted since Rosneft announced it wouldn't buy out minorities after acquiring TNK-BP's parent company from BP PLC (BP) and a group of Soviet-born billionaires in deals worth USD60 billion. The stock was hit further when Rosneft said it could take billions of dollars in loans from TNK-BP units.

"Rosneft management understands that it's a problem, that needs to be resolved with them (the minorities)," Mr. Shuvalov told Sberbank Russia Forum 2013 in Moscow.

As MRC informed earlier, a new organizational structure for Russian state oil giant Rosneft, which recently finalized its purchase of joint venture TNK-BP, is expected in June, said Rosneft's chief executive Igor Sechin. He added that key decisions about the new organization had already been made but that revisions would be "confirmed at the general meeting in June."
MRC

MOSCOW (MRC) -- Twelve contract workers were hurt on Wednesday morning when a fire broke out at a unit undergoing repairs at Exxon Mobil Corp's Beaumont, Texas, refinery, reported Chicago Tribune News with reference to a company spokeswoman.

Exxon Mobil did not identify the unit but confirmed the fire broke out at 10:30 a.m. CDT (11.30 a.m. EDT) on a shut unit undergoing planned maintenance work at the refinery. The blaze was quickly brought under control and extinguished, said company spokeswoman Rachael Moore.

Six of the 12 workers were taken to regional hospitals "for further medical evaluation and treatment," Moore said.

The cause of the fire has yet to be disclosed.

The ExxonMobil Beaumont site is one of the larger refineries in the US, with a capacity of 344,500 bpd.

We remind that, as MRC informed previously, on 5, Oct, ExxonMobil Corp. confined a fire that broke out at its 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.

ExxonMobil is the largest non-government owned company in the energy industry and produces about 3 percent of the world's oil and about 2 percent of the world's energy.
MRC