US imposes new sanctions on Russia over Ukraine

MOSCOW (MRC) - The United States on Wednesday imposed its most wide-ranging sanctions yet on Russia's economy, including Gazprombank and the Rosneft Oil Co, and other major banks and energy and defense companies, reported Reuters.

Washington has steadily escalated its financial sanctions on Russia over what it views as Moscow's interference in its neighbor Ukraine.

As MRC informed previously, Russian state oil producer Rosneft will shift its focus to new projects from acquisitions, at a time when the Russian economy is grappling with US and European sanctions, according to the company's chief financial officer.

"We are number one by size, number one by growth, number one by reserve base, number one by efficiency: we don't have to buy more", the Financial times quoted Svyatoslav Slavinsky as saying. The company was looking at developing new oil resources, from east Siberia to the Arctic Sea, and intended to start drilling along with US major ExxonMobil this summer as it looked to shore up its plans of posting a 30% jump in production by 2020, the paper quoted the chief financial officer as saying.

Rosneft became Russia's largest publicly traded oil company in March 2013 after the USD55 billion takeover of TNK-BP, which was Russia’s third-largest oil producer at the time.
MRC

MOSCOW (MRC) -- The world cup in South Africa may be over and all the teams have packed up and gone home but the games have left a more permanent legacy according to Saudi Basic Industries Corporation (SABIC), said Arabianoilgas.

The company's Lexan and Polyethylene products have been used for the 14,000 square metres of roof covering on the Soccer City Stadium in Johannesburg where the final game on July 11 between Spain and The Netherlands took place.

The roof is made of SABIC Lexan PC sheet which delivers the clarity of glass without the drawbacks of weight and fragility said the company. The SABIC Lexan sheet is also carefully designed to resemble flowing water and protects up to 95,000 spectators from changing weather conditions.

SABIC’s Lexan PC sheet has also been used for the building joints of the Moses Mabhida Stadium in Durban as well as for roof glazing at the Peter Mokaba Stadium in Polokwane.

And perhaps the most memorable element that anybody will remember South Africa's World Cup for - for better or for worse - is the ubiquitous vuvuzela blown by the thousands of football fans at the country's stadiums, these were produced using SABIC's HDPE products.

As MRC wrote before, Sabic Innovative Plastics will invest in a production line for Stamax-brand long glass fiber-reinforced polypropylene (PP) resin at its manufacturing site in Shanghai. Investment or production capacity numbers were not revealed, but the new line is expected to come on stream in H2-2015. This will be Sabic's third Stamax plant, joining existing facilities in Genk, Belgium, and Bay St. Louis, Miss., according to the statement.

SABICis a diversified manufacturing company, active in chemicals and intermediates, industrial polymers, fertilizers and metals. It is the largest public company in Saudi Arabia and the largest company in the Middle East. Sabic is currently the second largest global ethylene glycol producer and is expected to become number one after the introduction of these new projects. Sabic is the third largest polyethylene manufacturer, the fourth largest polyolefins manufacturer and the fourth largest polypropylene manufacturer. It is also the world's largest producer of mono-ethylene glycol, MTBE, granular urea, polyphenylene and polyether imide.
MRC

MOSCOW (MRC) -- The race to control the world’s biggest source of lithium used in everything from iPad batteries to electric cars and everyday drugs is on, said Hydrocarbonprocessing.

Albemarle Corp. agreed Tuesday to pay USD6.2 billion in cash and stock for Princeton, New Jersey-based Rockwood Holdings, the largest lithium producer.

Rockwood is one of four companies that control about 90% of the market for lithium. Demand for the metal will expand as much as three times faster than the overall economy, Baton Rogue, Louisiana-based Albemarle said in an investor presentation. Other lithium producers are just as bullish. The world market may double in a decade with demand growing at 7% to 10% annually, Chile’s Soc. Quimica & Minera de Chile said in April.

The Albemarle deal is the latest example of consolidation in the highly concentrated lithium industry. In 2012, China’s Chengdu Tianqi Industry Group agreed to buy Australia’s Talison Lithium, owner of the world’s largest open-pit lithium mine. Chengdu later agreed to sell a stake in the mine to Rockwood, which had unsuccessfully bid for Talison.

Talison, Rockwood, Philadelphia-based FMC Corp. and SQM control about 90% of worldwide lithium production, according to Jefferies & Co.

Albemarle agreed to pay USD50.65 in cash and 0.4803 of a share for each Rockwood share. That values Rockwood at $85.53/share, or 13% more than Monday’s closing price, the companies said in a statement.

Bank of America Merrill Lynch is providing financing for the cash portion of the deal, which is expected to close in the first quarter of 2015.

Albemarle said the deal isn’t contingent on the completion of Huntsman’s planned acquisition of Rockwood’s titanium-dioxide (TiO2) business.

Tuesday's deal is the largest takeover of a diversified chemicals company since Solvay bought Rhodia in 2011, according to data compiled by Bloomberg. It will add to Albemarle’s cash earnings per share in the first year, according to the statement. Albemarle expects about USD100 million in cost savings by 2016.
MRC

MOSCOW (MRC) -- Former Eni SpA CEO Paolo Scaroni promised Italian unions he wouldn’t shut the company’s money-losing oil refineries until 2014, said Hydrocarbonprocessing.

Eni has begun negotiations to close as much as half its 774,000 barrel-a-day capacity and put more than 3,500 jobs at risk, according to the industry’s main union, which started a strike at one plant on July 15. Eni’s biggest program of closures would be a radical attempt by new CEO Claudio Descalzi to deal with overcapacity in Europe’s refining sector, where the region’s economic slump and competition from Asia has forced shutdowns and caused bankruptcies.

Descalzi, who headed the profitable exploration and production unit before his promotion in May, will probably get backing, at least tacitly, from his largest shareholder: the Italian government. While closing the plants would cause job losses as unemployment stands at 12.6%, Prime Minister Matteo Renzi supports change at state-backed companies and has sought to weaken union power within his Democratic Party.

An Eni official declined to comment on any potential closures, saying a new strategic plan that includes the refining and marketing unit will be stated on July 31.

Closing the plants would cut Eni’s Italian workforce by about 13%, based on data in the company’s fact book.

European refiners have struggled to turn a profit as recession curbed demand for fuel, more efficient plants opened in Asia and the Middle East and the boom in U.S. oil production closed a major export market. That led to more than a dozen plants shutting, the biggest wave of closures since the 1980s.

The now-bankrupt Petroplus Holdings closed sites across the region after struggling to find buyers, while France’s Total accepted union demands, promising not to shut any sites until next year.

Eni told the union at least three of its six refineries were at risk of closing, according to a statement from the labor union last week. It guaranteed continued operations at the 190,000 barrel-a-day Sannazzaro refinery, which got a new diesel-producing unit in 2012, and at Milazzo, a joint venture with Kuwait Petroleum Corp., according to the statement. The two plants represent half of its capacity in the country. The company said at the meeting it won’t go ahead with investment at Gela, while the Taranto facility, the second stage of the Venice plant conversion, and the chemicals site at Priolo were at risk. The Livorno refinery, with a capacity of 84,000 barrels a day, wasn’t mentioned in the statement.

Eni is 30% owned by the state, giving the prime minister power to appoint the CEO. Renzi, Italy’s youngest-ever premier and an advocate of labor-market deregulation, picked a fight with CGIL union leader Susanna Camusso to win party backing for a tax cut for low income workers.

As MRC wrote before, oil processing firm Unipetrol is to buy out the stake of Italy's ENI in their joint refining firm Ceska Rafinerska, Unipetrol said on Thursday, giving it full control of the Czech refining sector. Unipetrol, majority owned by Poland's PKN Orlen, said it would pay 30 million euros (USD40.9 million) for the 32.4 percent stake it did not already own in the firm, which operates the country's two refineries at Litvinov and Kralupy. The acquisition, for which Unipetrol had right of first refusal, followed a bid by Hungary's MOL to buy the ENI stake.

Eni is an Italian multinational oil and gas company headquartered in Rome. It has operations in in 79 countries, and is currently Italy's largest industrial company with a market capitalization of 68 billion euros (USD 90 billion), as of August 14, 2013. The Italian government owns a 30.3% golden share in the company, 3.93% held through the state Treasury and 26.37% held through the Cassa depositi e prestiti. Another 39.40% of the shares are held by BNP Paribas.
MRC

MOSCOW (MRC) -- Styron (Hong Kong) Limited, an affiliate of Styron, the global materials company and manufacturer of plastics, latex and rubber, and its affiliate companies in Asia Pacific have increased prices for all polystyrene (PS) grades in July, according to the company's statement.

The prices for the products listed below will increase as follows:

- STYRON general purpose polystyrene grades (GPPS) - by USD20tonne;
- STYRON and STYRON A-TECH high-impact polystyrene grades (HIPS) - by USD20/tonne.

"The price increase responds to the rising costs associated with the manufacturing of polystyrene grades in Asia Pacific," said Samer Al Jabi, Global Product Manager for Polystyrene.

As MRC reported earlier, Styron Hong Kong is in plans to shut its PS plant for maintenance turnaround in September 2014. It is likely to remain off-stream for around one month. Located in Hong Kong, the plant has a production capacity of 200,000 mt/year.

Styron is a leading global materials company and manufacturer of plastics, latex and rubber, dedicated to collaborating with customers to deliver innovative and sustainable solutions. StyronпїЅs technology is used by customers in industries such as home appliances, automotive, building & construction, carpet, consumer electronics, consumer goods, electrical & lighting, medical, packaging, paper & paperboard, rubber goods and tires. Styron had approximately USD5.3 billion in revenue in 2013, with 19 manufacturing sites around the world.
MRC