Industry: Upstream and E&P

My Turn – Commentary on Global Polyolefins and Elastomers –The Shift of Basic R&D to India and China – Dr. Balaji B. Singh Chemical Market Resources Inc. just completed the FlexPO2006 conference in Singapore. The conference was a roaring success. After the last four years of languishing in depressing North American polyolefins prospects, no innovations, […]

My Turn – Commentary on Global Polyolefins and Elastomers – Dr. Balaji B. Singh Disappearing Giants of Polyolefins and Elastomers – With the recent disappearance of Amoco-BP-Innovene, another giant bit the dust. The difference this time – Innovene a much-tooted polyolefins spin-off of BP-Amoco did not even survive the first anniversary of their inauguration. We […]

Westlake announces third-quarter earnings Westlake Chemical Corporation reported a net income of $43.5 million and income from operations of $70.1 million on net sales of $605.4 million for the third quarter of 2005. This compares favorably with the third quarter 2004 net income of $28.3 million and income from operations of $68.9 million on net […]

BP’s petrochemical subsidiary Innovene files for $1 billion IPO The petrochemical subsidiary of BP Plc, Innovene Inc., has registered for an initial public offering (IPO) on the New York Stock Exchange to raise $1 billion. In 2004, BP decided that it would either sell or float the business. According to the company’s IPO document – […]

Innovene and Delta Oil to explore petrochemical investment in Saudi Arabia Innovene, BP’s petrochemicals and refining subsidiary, and Delta International, a leading Saudi-owned independent development company, announced the signing of a Memorandum of Understanding (MOU) for a major investment in Saudi Arabia’s petrochemical sector. The memorandum marks the beginning of negotiations between Innovene and Delta […]

Chemicals & polyolefins producers and other companies report positive fourth-quarter earnings Dow Chemical Dow Chemical announced its fourth-quarter earnings. The company had a total sales for the fourth quarter of 2004 of $10.9 billion, up 31% compared to 4Q 2003. Overall 2004 sales increased to $40.2 billion, 23% higher than in 2003 and a new […]

Nizhnekamskneftekhim selects Spherilene process for new LDPE/HDPE plant Nizhnekamskneftekhim announced the selection of Basell’s Spherilene® polyethylene technology for a new 230 KT per year plant to produce linear low-density and high-density polyethylene. The plant is to be built in Nizhnekamsk, Republic of Tatarstan, Russia, with a start-up planned for 2007. According to Basell, the new […]

Borealis joint venture Borouge to expand polyethylene capacity to 580,000 MT/year Borouge, Borealis’ joint venture with ADNOC has announced its plans to expand its existing Borstar capacity and that is considering further expansion to form a world-scale petrochemical complex at Ruwais, Abu Dhabi in the UAE. Building on the successful start-up and first two years […]

DuPont Dow records first sales of new ENGAGE® grades DuPont Dow Elastomers reported the first commercial sales of ENGAGE polyolefin elastomer ethylene butene grades to the automotive TPO, plastics modification, and footwear markets. The company introduced 4 new grades of ENGAGE based on ethylene butene in August for these markets along with the compounding, extrusion, […]

Dow to idle 900 million pounds of polyethylene capacity Dow Chemical announced that it had begun the process of idling about 900 million pounds of North American PE capacity due to low polyethylene demand, higher feedstock costs and eroding polyethylene margins. Dow began the idling process Aug. 14, and the company said that most of […]