Chexpress - November 1, 2011

North America

Acquisition

Quest Specialty Coatings has acquired protective coatings maker Patriot Paint. Terms of the deal were not disclosed. Patriot Paint produces coatings systems for a wide variety of metal substrates, from zero-VOC, anti-corrosive transportation coatings to multilayer decorative systems for metal caskets. The acquisition expands the coatings portfolio of Quest Specialty Chemicals.

Lawsuit

Oagle, a village in Nigeria’s oil-rich southern delta, has sued Royal Dutch Shell PLC for $1 billion in a U.S. federal court. The lawsuit alleges that Shell acted willfully negligent in pursuing profits over protecting the nation’s Niger Delta. Observers have found a drinking-water well polluted with benzene 900 times the international limit.

LNG Export

Apache’s Kitimat LNG project is the first large-scale natural gas export project from western Canada. Royal Dutch Shell has thrown its hat into the ring as the race to export liquefied natural gas (LNG) from Canada’s Pacific Coast to Asian markets speeds up. Shell has purchased a marine terminal at Kitimat on the British Columbia coast, which it is considering using as a site to build an LNG export plant. Shell’s partners in the site acquisition were potential Asian LNG customers China National Petroleum Corporation, Korea Gas and Mitsubishi.

Contract

Jacobs Engineering Group Inc. has received a contract from Arkema Inc. to provide engineering, procurement and construction management services for two projects. The acrylic acid expansion and methyl acrylate projects will take place at Arkema’s Clear Lake, Texas location.

World

Acquisition

PPG Industries has acquired Dyrup, a manufacturer of architectural coatings and specialty products. The deal is set to close on January 5, 2012. The acquisition expands PPG’s geographic reach within Europe as well as its product portfolio. Dyrup operates six manufacturing facilities in Europe and had $270 million in sales in 2010. The deal will help grow PPG’s presence in key countries, including Poland, France and Denmark, as well as establish PPG in Portugal, Spain and Germany.

Polyester Film Production

Teijin DuPont Films, a global joint venture partnership with Teijin Limited and E.I. du Pont de Nemours and Co., will increase its China-based production of polyester film at DuPont Hongji Films Foshan Co., Ltd. (DPHJ) in Guangdong Province. DPHJ will acquire a new site in NanZhuang to construct two polyester film lines, one for thick film and the other for thin film. The planned investment is $78 million. The thick film line will be built with an inactive production line relocated from a defunct U.S. plant in Florence, South Carolina, which closed permanently in February. It will be used for the expanded production of competitive products for photovoltaic backsheet. Operations are expected to begin in the second half of 2012. The thin film line will be newly constructed, with operations expected to begin in 2013.

Relocation

Gaoqiao Petrochemical, a subsidiary of Sinopec, is likely to start construction of a new site at the Shanghai Chemical Industry Park in 2013 to fulfill its relocation plan. The company was told by Shanghai’s government to move from its present Pudong urban site to the city outskirts over increasing environmental concerns. The process, however, has been delayed by issues such as investment and staff allocation. The new site will include a 20 million ton/year refinery, a 1 million ton/year cracker and downstream plants, and will reportedly cost $9 billion. Facilities at the existing site will be knocked down once the new site is operational.

Investment

Bashneft plans to invest 35 billion rubles over five years in oil refining and petrochemicals. Bashneft plans to invest about 19 billion rubles in raising product yield from crude and production of light oil products; 9.7 billion rubles in improving the quality of motor fuel to meet the Euro 5 standard; and 6.4 billion rubles in production development and reduction of costs and fuel consumption. 16.2 billion rubles of the investment will go into the Novoil oil refinery in Novoufimsk; 9.5 billion rubles will go toward the modernization of the Ufa Oil Refinery; and 1.7 billion rubles will be invested in Ufanektekhim.

PX Plant

S-Oil has completed the paraxylene (PX) production facilities at its factory in Onsan, Ulsan, North Gyeongsang Province. PX is a raw material for polyester (chemical fiber) and water bottles (PET). The completion of the plant enables S-Oil to annually produce 1.7 million tons of PX, almost doubling the refiner’s original production capacity.

Gas Chemical Facility

Lukoil has broken ground on a gas chemical facility in Budyonnovsk, Stavropol Territory. Phase one of the project has launched, which will include a gas processing plant (GPP), part of a gas chemical facility (GCF). The facility is expected to be built in several phases. In 2015, Lukoil expects to commission phase one of the GPP with a capacity of 2 billion cubic meters/year and a 135 MW unit on the base of a combined-cycle gas turbine, as well as an upgrade to the existing ethylene production unit to covert it to the processing of liquefied gases. In 2017, it plans to commission phase two of the GPP with a capacity of 4 billion cubic meters/year, an ethylene production unit with a capacity of 225 thousand tons/year, and a polyethylene production unit with a capacity of 255 thousand tons/year.

New Plant

Saudi Organometallic Chemicals Company (SOCC), a joint venture between Albemarle Netherlands and Sabic unit Specialty Chem, broke ground on its new aluminum alkyls manufacturing facility in Jubail, Saudi Arabia. Samsung Engineering is in charge of the engineering, procurement and construction of the plant. The new facility is planned to manufacture 6,000 metric tons of tri-ethyl aluminum/year.