SK Innovation announces reorganization and executive personnel appointments for 2024

SK Innovation and its affiliates implemented organizational and executive personnel restructuring set for 2024, with a primary focus on preparedness for an unpredictable business landscape and the improvement of inter-organizational synergy through personnel reforms, said the company.

Park Sang-kyu, the current CEO of SK Enmove, has been appointed as the new CEO of SK Innovation. He has demonstrated both strategic planning capabilities and on-site business acumen, drawing from his extensive business background within the organization. In his role as the new CEO, it is anticipated that he will play a key role in enhancing internal stability and fostering sustainable growth amidst the uncertainties of the business environment.

SK Geo Centric and SK Enmove have strengthened systems to produce outcomes in earnest including Ulsan ARC, which entered the commercialization process and e-Fluids. SK On has carried out its restructuring focusing on strengthening manufacturing and R&D competitiveness as well as increasing profitability. SK IE Technology has established a new marketing division to advance marketing strategies tailored to regions and consumers.

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EU antitrust regulators fined Lantmannen, the largest ethanol producer in the Nordic region, $51.4 MM for rigging ethanol benchmarks between November 2012 to March 2014, as per Hydrocarbonprocessing.

The European Commission raided some companies in 2014 and 2015 that subsequently led to investigations into Lantmannen, Alcogroup and Abengoa in 2015.

It said the three companies took part in a cartel focusing on the wholesale price formation mechanism for ethanol in Europe.

The EU antitrust enforcer dropped its case against Alcogroup earlier this year because of insufficient grounds to continue its investigation while Abengoa was hit with a 20 million euro fine two years ago.

As per, Venezuelan state oil company PDVSA has assigned loading windows this month to two vessels bound for India under crude spot deals with Italy's ENI and U.S.-based Chevron, an internal company document showed. Indian refiners including Reliance Industries, Indian Oil Corp and HPCL-Mittal Energy (HMEL) have been looking for Venezuelan crude cargoes to buy since Washington eased oil sanctions on the South American country in October.

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BASF is taking a further step on its path to net zero and has committed to targets for Scope 3.1 emissions, said the company.

The announcement was made during an update for investors and analysts in Ludwigshafen at which Dr. Martin Brudermuller, Chairman of the Board of Executive Directors of BASF SE, and Dr. Dirk Elvermann, Chief Financial Officer, reported on progress in the implementation of the corporate strategy announced in 2018. Brudermuller and Elvermann outlined how the company is delivering on the priorities for the use of cash laid out in the strategy and also presented a new differentiated approach to steering businesses for more profitability.

BASF’s corporate strategy is based on organic growth. Between 2018 and 2022, the company allocated around 60 percent of its spending to capital expenditures and research and development.

Brudermuller emphasized the high importance of shareholder returns and an attractive dividend for BASF’s Board of Executive Directors. “BASF has increased the dividend in three of the past five years and kept it stable at the respective prior year level in 2020 and in 2022 due to the challenging framework conditions,” he said. The total dividend payout since 2018 amounts to €15.8 billion, and the average dividend yield is 5.6 percent per year. Over the last decade, BASF’s attractive dividend payouts have been supported by the company’s strong cash generation. Between 2013 and 2022, average cash flows from operating activities amounted to €7.7 billion per year and average free cash flow amounted to €3.4 billion per year.

We remind, BASF Services Europe GmbH today opened its new service Hub location in Berlin. BASF will use 15,000 square meters over eight floors in the SCALE office complex in the Prenzlauer Berg district, said the company. With around 2,800 employees, BASF Services Europe GmbH provides a wide range of business management services for BASF Group companies in Europe, the Middle East and Africa.

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India directed sugar mills not to use cane juice or syrup to produce ethanol, as New Delhi tries to increase sugar supplies by curtailing ethanol production, said the company, said Hydrocarbonprocessing.

Reuters had reported on Wednesday that the government was planning to discourage the diversion of sugar for ethanol production as part of efforts to ensure sufficient supplies of the sweetener in the local market. Fuel retailers, under current contracts, are permitted to keep their procurement of ethanol derived from B-heavy molasses, a byproduct with higher sucrose levels, the government said.

It would also allow the diversion of 1.04 million metric tons of B-heavy molasses for ethanol production under existing contracts, government officials said. The moves will help to reduce diversion of around 2.14 million tons of sugar for ethanol-making from cane juice, they said.

An industry official had said on Wednesday the government would allow mills to produce ethanol only from C-heavy molasses, a cane by-product that has hardly any sugar content left in it. Shares of Indian sugar and ethanol makers such as E.I.D.-Parry, Balrampur Chini Mills, Shree Renuka , Bajaj Hindusthan, and Dwarikesh Sugar closed up to 6% lower on Thursday.

India's fuel retailers buy ethanol from sugar mills to blend with gasoline and pay a higher price for ethanol produced from juice and B-heavy molasses. Patchy rains in the top sugar cane-growing western state of Maharashtra and southern Karnataka state have raised concerns about this year's sugar output.

The Indian Sugar Mills Association, a producers' body, last month said sugar production is likely to fall 8% to 33.7 million metric tons in the 2023/24 marketing year.

We remind, Venezuelan state oil company PDVSA has assigned loading windows this month to two vessels bound for India under crude spot deals with Italy's ENI and U.S.-based Chevron, an internal company document showed. Indian refiners including Reliance Industries, Indian Oil Corp and HPCL-Mittal Energy (HMEL) have been looking for Venezuelan crude cargoes to buy since Washington eased oil sanctions on the South American country in October.

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Venezuelan state oil company PDVSA has assigned loading windows this month to two vessels bound for India under crude spot deals with Italy's ENI and U.S.-based Chevron, an internal company document showed, said Hydrocarbonprocessing.

Indian refiners including Reliance Industries, Indian Oil Corp and HPCL-Mittal Energy (HMEL) have been looking for Venezuelan crude cargoes to buy since Washington eased oil sanctions on the South American country in October.

Some refiners have agreed to purchase deals with trading houses that had early access to Venezuelan oil between October and November, while others are set to buy from PDVSA's joint venture partners. The scheduled deliveries to India are the first authorized by PDVSA through oil majors' Eni and Chevron in three years.

The two vessels to load for India are the Liberia-flagged supertanker C. Earnest, which arrived in Venezuelan waters on Wednesday chartered by Reliance, and the Malta-flagged supertanker Desimi, which has been waiting to load since last week, according to the document and ship tracking data. Each can transport up to 2 million barrels of Venezuela's prized heavy crude oil.

A separate crude cargo on the very large crude carrier Eucaly, sold by PDVSA to intermediary Hangzhou Energy, finished loading last week and could also set sail to India if a deal through a trading firm and an Indian refiner is confirmed. The cargo had initially been allocated for Malaysia, another document showed.

Venezuelan oil sales to India got suspended in 2020 when the U.S. imposed secondary sanctions on the nation. Reliance was PDVSA's second largest individual customer prior to sanctions.

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