Chexpress - August 7, 2012

North America

Pipeline

TransCanada Corp. has been selected to build a $659 million pipeline for an oil-sands project under development by Suncor Energy Inc. and Total SA. The TransCanada pipeline would transport bitumen and diluent about 55 miles between the Fort Hills mine and the Voyageur upgrader. An upgrader refinery converts bitumen into synthetic light oil. The Fort Hills mine is a joint venture between Suncor, Total and Teck Resources Ltd. that would produce 160,000 barrels of bitumen/day. The Voyageur upgrader is a 50-50 joint venture between Suncor and Total that would produce 200,000 barrels/day of light oil.

Acquisition

Wood Group has acquired Duval, a provider of maintenance, installation and fabrication services in the Eagle Ford shale region of Texas. Duval will operate as Wood Group Duval within Wood Group PSN, and will complement the division’s existing onshore U.S. production facilities support services.

Acquisition

Landmark Software and Services, a Halliburton business line, has acquired Petris Technology, a leading supplier of data-management and integration solutions to the global energy industry. The acquisition positions Halliburton with a unique capability within the upstream oil and gas industry. Halliburton can now deliver customers access to their reservoir and well technical data, empowering their decision-making processes.

Joint Venture

Devon Energy has signed an agreement with Sumitomo Corporation whereby Sumitomo will invest $1.4 billion in exchange for 30% of Devon’s interest in approximately 650,000 net acres in the Cline Shale and the Midland-Wolfcamp Shale. Under the terms of the agreement, Sumitomo will invest $340 million in cash upon closing and an additional $1.025 billion will be invested in the form of a drilling carry. Closing of the transaction is expected to occur in the third quarter of 2012.

 

World

Chemical Plant

China Petroleum & Chemical Corp. (Sinopec Corp.) and BASF SE have signed a preliminary agreement to build an iso-nananol plant in southeaster Guangdong province. The move will likely help China reduce its reliance on imports of iso-nananol, a chemical used primarily in plastics manufacturing. The final scope of the investment will be determined based on the outcome of the joint feasibility study, which is expcted to be complete by the end of this year.

Plants Delays

Braskem SA is delaying ground-breaking plans until 2013 for two new ethanol-based plastics plants and a naphtha-based polypropylene plant. The company had planned to start building three new plants in Brazil within the next few months that would have totaled $495.17 million in investment. The company’s priorities have shifted to focus on increasing production capacity in existing plants and modernizing its current petrochemical park.

Plant Start Up

China National Offshore Oil Corporation (CNOOC) is planning to start up its 100,000 tons/year butyl acrylate (butyl-A) plant at Huizhou in Guangzhou province in mid-to-late August. The company was initially planning to start up the unit by the end of June, but this was changed to August because of delays in achieving environmental clearance from the government and weak demand.

Plant Fire

Kuwait’s EQUATE Petrochemical Company has been forced to shut one of its 550,000 metric tons/year ethylene glycol plant due to a fire accident. The shutdown will last around six weeks. Production operations of the other units are unaffected and ongoing. The fire resulted from a leak in a part of the manufacturing unit and was subsequently contained and extinguished.

Rubber Plant

Kemya Company, a 50-50 joint venture of Saudi Basic Industries Corp. (Sabic) and ExxonMobil Chemical, expects its rubber plant in Jubail to start operations in the second half of 2015. The $3.4 billion project targets both domestic and international synthetic rubber markets as Saudi Arabia seeks to build downstream industries around its major petrochemicals operations to produce higher value specialty chemicals. The plant is poised to produce 400,000 tons/year of synthetic rubber and other polymers in June 2015.