Chexpress - May 14, 2013

North America

Natural gas

ExxonMobil and Qatar Petroleum have agreed to ship liquefied natural gas (LNG) to Brittan from their proposed export plant in the United States. Under the deal, the companies would send up to 15.6 million tons of LNG each year to their South Hook terminal in Wales from the Golden Pass plant in Texas. The move is pending U.S. government approval to build the plant and export LNG.

Acquisition

Flotek Industries Inc. is buying Florida Chemical Co. in a deal valued at about $102.5 million. Florida Chemical has served as a supplier and partner to Flotek for more than 15 years. Flotek does not plan to make any immediate changes to the structure and operations of Florida Chemical.

Site plans

Sunoco Logistics Partners L.P. has taken ownership of the closed Marcus Hook refinery near Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. The company plans to repurpose the refinery as a hub for shipping liquid fuels produced from natural-gas drilling in the Marcellus and Utica Shales. Sunoco Logistics acquired the refinery for $60 million from its former parent company, Sunoco Inc.

Contract

Fluor Corporation has been awarded a contract by The Dow Chemical Company to execute a significant portion of its U.S. Gulf Coast investments. Fluor’s scope includes the engineering, procurement and construction (EPC) of a propane dehydrogenation unit, an ethane cracker, and associated power, utilities and infrastructure facility upgrades to support each unit. The facilities will be constructed in Freeport, Texas.

 

World

Work halted

The government has halted a chemical plant project in Chengdu, China amid concerns over its proximity to an earthquake fault line. The government will not allow production at the petrochemical project in Pengzhou to begin prior to a legally required examination. The recent earthquake in Sichuan has reignited concerns over potential health hazards caused by the petrochemical factory.

Gas deal

Woodside Petroleum Ltd. aims to finalize a $1.2 billion deal to buy a 30% stake in a big natural gas field in the Mediterranean Sea by June. The Leviathan gas field contains an estimated 18 trillion cubic feet of natural gas. It is the world’s largest deepwater gas find in a decade.

Modular refinery project

The Nigerian Ministry of Trade and Petroleum Refining and Strategic Reserve’s (PRSR) $4.5 billion modular refinery project remains uncertain, with two months before the planned inauguration of the first phase of the project. The two entities signed a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) in 2012, which provided for the construction of six modular refineries with combined refining capacity of 180,000 barrels of crude oil/day that would have been constructed in the country within the next 18 months by PRSR. Each modular refinery, when functional, will refine up to 30,000 barrels of crude/day, producing up to five million liters of petrol, diesel, kerosene and Low Pour Fuel Oil (LPFO). Recent checks on the status of the project show that no concrete work has taken place.

Consolidation

ExxonMobil Lubricants India is set to consolidate its industrial lubes business in India by offering a wider range of its global products as it sees its synthetic oils gaining momentum. Manufacturing, power and cement plants have already switched over to superior oils ensuring efficiency and the new segments are steadily moving toward use of more efficient synthetic lubricants.