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Issue 9, 2017 - Global Chemicals Quick Review

 Last Update: 2022-11-11
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1 january

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Global Chemicals Quick Review

AkzoNobel plans to divest its chemical business within a year

AkzoNobel said it would divest its chemical business over the next year, and the company would choose to sell shares in its chemical business on the stock market or sell the chemical business as a whole to other companies
.
Analysts estimate that the divestiture of the chemical business will bring $8 billion ~ $12 billion to
AkzoNobel.
AkzoNobel's chemical business comprises five main divisions: surfactants, ethylene oxide and derivatives, polymer chemicals, chlorine-based chemicals and bleaching chemicals, with annual sales of US$5 billion, pre-tax profit of US$1 billion and approximately 9,000 employees
.
After the divestiture of the chemical business, AkzoNobel will become a pure-play paints and coatings company, with annual sales of $10 billion, pre-tax profit of $1.
2 billion and approximately 37,000
employees.

U.
S.
oil and gas M&A transactions hit a record high in the first quarter

PwC's latest report on M&A transactions in the oil and gas sector shows that the value of M&A deals announced by the US oil and gas industry in the first quarter of this year is a record high,
stimulated by three factors: stabilizing oil and gas prices, deregulation in the energy sector and technological advancements.
PwC said that in the first quarter of this year, the value of M&A transactions announced by the U.
S.
oil and gas industry increased by 160% year-on-year to $73.
04 billion, and the number of M&A transactions increased by 36% year-on-year to 53.

The U.
S.
oil and gas industry announced M&A deals worth $49 billion in January alone, more than 40 percent more than
in the first quarter of any year since 2010.

The Asian market for linear alkyl benzene will stabilize in the near future

Spot prices of linear alkyl benzene (LAB) in Asia do not appear to have been affected by the recent feedstock supply shortages due to India's high anti-dumping duties on LAB imports from Qatar, Iran and China, but are unlikely to fall
significantly in the near term.
According to ICIS, the spot price of LAB in Northeast and Southeast Asian markets has fallen by about $30/mt after hitting a two-year high in mid-March this year, but the price has stabilized
in April.
In the week ended March 15, LAB prices in Southeast and Northeast Asia hit their highest levels since July 2015, while prices in India were also at their highest level
since June 2015.
In addition to the impact of higher prices for benzene raw materials, the sharp increase in LAB prices is also related to
the news of a shortage of linear paraffins caused by the shutdown of Shell's Pearl GTL plant in Qatar by some market participants.

South Korean refiners ramped up purchases of Russian and U.
S.
crude

South Korean refiners are gradually ramping up purchases of U.
S.
and Russian crude
oil as OPEC production cuts are expected to reduce crude supplies from the Middle East.
Hyundai Refining, South Korea's fourth-largest refiner, has purchased 2 million barrels of U.
S.
Southern Green Canyon crude, the first time South Korea has imported such crude
.
"We buy U.
S.
crude because of lower prices and lower freight rates, and we have no plans to import more U.
S.
crude at this time, but we will seek to import crude resources outside the Middle East as part of
the company's plan to diversify its supply sources," Hyundai Refining executives said.
As part of a plan to diversify its crude sources, South Korea's SK Innovation is planning to receive 1 million barrels of Russian Ural crude purchased
earlier this year.
An executive at SK Innovation said: "This shipment of Urals crude oil is expected to arrive as early as mid-April, which is also the first time the company has purchased Ural crude in
nearly a decade.
”

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