Indian refiner Reliance seeks more Iranian oil

MOSCOW (MRC) -- Reliance Industries, India's biggest oil refiner, said it is looking to buy more crude from Iran as the company seeks to rebuild ties to benefit from shorter shipping distances, said Reuters.

The company had made small purchases from Iran in the current quarter and was currently engaged in talks for bigger supplies, indicating that it could also get into a long-term supply contract, said V Srikanth, Reliance's joint chief financial officer.

India is set to import at least 400,000 bpd of Iranian oil in the year from April 1, with refiners looking to ramp up purchases after the sanctions targeting Tehran ended in January, sources had told Reuters.

Iran was India's second biggest oil supplier before economic sanctions aimed at Iran's nuclear program hampered its trade relations. Now, Indian buyers are being drawn back to Iran in part by freight discounts that increase as more barrels are purchased.

The comments came as Reliance posted its biggest quarterly profit in over eight years on better margins in the company's core refining and petrochemical business. Reliance, controlled by India's richest man, Mukesh Ambani, reported an estimate-topping net profit of 73.98 billion rupees (USD1.11 billion) for the Jan-March period -- its highest quarterly profit since December 2007.

The gross refining margin on each barrel of crude processed was USD10.80/bbl, up from USD10.1/bbl a year ago, Reliance said. Srikanth said the company will be able to sustain margins at above USD10 -- one of the highest among global refiners -- in the current financial year.

As MRC informed earlier, Reliance Industries Ltd (RIL) has resumed operations at its polyvinyl chloride (PVC) plant in Dahej. A source in India informed that the plant was brought on-stream yesterday. It was shut in last week owing to a shortage of water. Located at Dahej in the western India state of Gujarat, the plant has a production capacity of 315,000 mt/year.

Reliance Industries is one of the world's largest producers of polymers. The company's polymer production in 2010-11 (polypropylene, polyethylene and polyvinyl chloride) made 4,094 kilo tonnes.
MRC

MOSCOW (MRC) -- German plastics and chemicals company Covestro said adjusted core earnings gained 22% in the first quarter as cheaper raw materials outweighed a decline in prices of its transparent polycarbonate plastics and foam chemicals, said Reuters.

Earnings before interest, taxes, depreciation and amortisation (EBITDA), adjusted for special items, gained 22% to 508 million euros (USD570.94 million), also bolstered by a 30 million euro insurance reimbursement.

That was above the 437 million euros expected on average in a Reuters poll of analysts.

It said it still predicted a 2016 sales volume increase of a medium single-digit percentage at its main products and that free operating cash flow would be unchanged but remain above the average for previous years.

As MRC imformed earlier, from September 1, 2015, Bayer MaterialScience became known as Covestro. Bayer aims to float this business on the stock market by mid-2016 at the latest. The plans for the carve-out of Bayer MaterialScience were announced in September 2014.

Covestro (formerly Bayer MaterialScience) is an independent subgroup within Bayer. It was created as part of the restructuring of Bayer AG from the former business group Bayer Polymers, with certain of its activities being spun off to Lanxess AG. Covestro manufactures and develops materials such as coatings, adhesives and sealants, polycarbonates (CDs, DVDs), polyurethanes (automotive seating, insulation for refrigerating appliances) etc.

MRC

MOSCOW (MRC) -- The Advisory Committee on Trade of the Eurasian Economic Commission (EEC) is considering a proposal to reduce import duties of the Common Customs Union on certain types of chemical products for the production of wallpaper, caprolactam, methanol, ammonia and methyl esters of fatty acids, reported MRC analysts.

The Advisory Committee received the proposal from the Republic of Belarus about the possibility of cutting customs duties of the Common Customs Tariff of the Eurasian Economic Union on certain types of chemical products. The Belarusian side is initiating a temporary cancellation of the import duties from the 1 May 2016.

Thus, Belarus offered to temporary cancel for the period from 1 May 2016 to 30 April 2019 the import customs duties on acrylic polymers in basic forms (HS code 3906 90 9000 9), plasticized polyvinyl chloride (PVC, HS code 3904 22 000 0) and to set to zero on a regular basis the import customs duties on sodium hydroxide in aqueous solution (HS code 2815 12 000 0).

The consideration of this issue will last until late April. The Belarusian State Concern for Oil and Chemistry and unitary enterprise Gomeloboi addressed the Eurasian Economic Commission with the proposal to introduce a measure of customs-tariff regulation.
MRC

MOSCOW (MRC) -- Saudi Arabia's PetroRabigh has started full operations at its expanded ethane cracker, reported Hydrocarbonprocessing.

The expansion will increase ethane processing capacity from 95 million standard cubic feet/day (scfd) to 125 million scfd; boosting capacity to 1.6 MMtpy.

The start of the expanded ethane cracker will increase the company's revenue by an estimated 750 million riyals (USD200 million) for 2016 and depending on the feedstock availability, the firm said in a bourse statement.

As MRC informed before, in April 2015, Rabigh Refining & Petrochemical Co. (Petro Rabigh) received ownership of the Rabigh Phase II project from Saudi Aramco and Sumitomo Chemical, major shareholders in Petro Rabigh, and will now integrate the project into Petro Rabigh's existing refining and petrochemical complex in Rabigh, Saudi Arabia.

The Rabigh II project, expected to cost about USD 8.1-billion, involves expanding an existing ethane cracker and adding production of ethylene propylene rubber, thermoplastic polyolefins, methyl methacrylate monomer, polymethyl methacrylate, low-density polyethylene/ethylene vinyl acetate, paraxylene/benzene, cumene and phenol/acetone. Production facilities are expected to begin operations "one after another, beginning in the first half of 2016," Sumitomo said.

PetroRabigh, a joint venture between Saudi Aramco and Japan's Sumitomo Chemical, has an annual output capacity of 18 million tonnes of refined products and 2.4 million tonnes of petrochemicals. Thus, the complex currently has a cracker to produce 1.3-million t/y of ethylene and 900,000 t/y of propylene, as well as downstream production of polyethylene, polypropylene, propylene oxide, ethylene glycol and butene-1.
MRC

MOSCOW (MRC) - Kaustik (Volgograd), subsidiary of Nikokhim group, plans to shut down production production of polyvinyl chloride (PVC) for scheduled maintenance works in May. The maintenance works will last more than two weeks, according to ICIS-MRC Price Report.

The representatives of the company said the plan would be shut from 13 May to 31 May. Its annual production capacity is 90,000 tonnes. This is the first preventive maintenance of Russian PVC producers. Next turnaround will take place at RusVinyl in September. Bashkir Soda Company (BSC) has no plans to stop for scheduled maintenance works this year.

As it was reported earlier, PVC output at Kaustik (Volgograd) exceeded 7,900 tonnes in March compared with 7,600 tonnes in February. Total PVC production at the plant exceeded 23,700 tonnes in January-March 2016, which was practically equal to last year's level.

Nikokhim Group companies - one of the leaders of the Russian chemical industry, the main production assets are located in the southern industrial hub of Volgograd. The holding company includes: JSC "Caustic" - principal place of business group, manufactures basic products - caustic soda, chloroparaffins, synthetic hydrochloric acid, chlorine, polyvinyl chloride, sodium hypochlorite, etc .; CJSC "NikoMag" produces anti-icing materials, magnesium chloride, magnesium oxide and hydroxide; Ltd. "Zirax" produces high-purity reagents for various industries and of "Poligran" produces plastic compounds and rigid PVC compounds.
MRC