Malaysia’s Proton Lubricant Business Reaching 2 Million Litres Mark

Malaysia's PETRONAS and Proton Holdings Bhd, the national car company are in collaborations to grow its lubricant business.

It is expected that the collaboration will amount up to two million litres in the next two to three years.

The two companies under the agreement gives Petronas the exclusive rights as Proton partner for all its domestic and global original equipment manufacturered (OEM) lubricants and functional fluids. Petronas in turn will support Proton to produce lubricants that cater specifically to its specific requirements.

Dow & PIC Setting up a JV Petchem

Dow Chemical and Kuwait’s Petrochemical Industries Co (PIC) have been reportedly signing a mutual agreement for a $17.4 billion K-Dow petrochemicals joint venture. It is estimated that K-Dow would generate $11 to $15 billion annual sales with the new JV which includes Dow's existing joint-ventures MEGlobal and Equipolymers. 

The 50:50 JV company will use Dow's strength from its olefins and polyolefins capacity turning it to be a major producer of petrochemicals and plastics including polyethylene, ethylene amines, ethanolamines, polypropylene and polycarbonate. K-Dow is also seen to be one of the important polypropylene technology and market related catalysts licensor.

PETRONAS EBITDA Increased 24%

PETRONAS, a Malaysian state-owned oil and gas major has posted a 24% year-on-year rise in its earnings before interest, tax, depreciation and amortisation (EBITDA) coming from sustained growth in demand for oil on the back of strong global economic expansion particularly in China and India. Revenue was up 21.2% to M$223.1 with PETRONAS profit after tax rose 31%. However, PETRONAS suffers drop in revenue for its petrochemical business segment nearly 7% due to decrease in production volumes from 9.8m tonnes to 9.3m tonnes.

Huntsman and Hexion Merger Extended

US producer Hexion Specialty Chemicals which is under way of merging with Huntsman has extended the termination date of the Huntsman merger agreement by 90 days to 4 July 2008. This would give the US regualtors more time to evaluate the proposed merger agreement for the two companies.

PKN Orlen Joint-Venture with Basell

PKN Orlen's nitrogen fertilizer profits were dropping due to heavy competitions from companies based in countries east of Poland. PKN Orlen's subsidiary, Anwil sales of ammonium nitrate products declined 6.9% to 135,000 tonnes in the fourth quarter of 2007.

PKN Orlen has Joint-Venture with Basell through Basell Orlen Polyolefins, a 50:50 share, is posting higher profit of Zl120m. As of now, PKN profits mostly come from other business than its fertilizer products due to the competitions.

Petrochemical News: BASF Becoming European Company

BASF has completed on its European Company status, changing the name of the company from BASF to BASF SE (Societas Europea). The company had also established BASF Euaropa Betriebsrat consisting 23 members from 12 European countries. BASF SE now has 12 boardmembers representing equal half for shareholders and employee representatives.

The European status would make BASF SE in the near future incorporation of more European employees especially in the area of EU cross border information and employees consultation and rights.