Making Sense of Chemical Prices Special Report ICIS TOP 40 POWER PLAYERS Phil Arthur
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EUROPE STYRENE EUROPE PE ACETIC ACID STRONG AND Producers are nervous Eastman’s Kingsport, OPTIMISTIC FOR about the wave of US US outage likely to FIRST QUARTER start-ups which will add keep upward pressure MARKETS P18 volumes to Europe 19 on prices during Q1 42 15 December 2017-4 January 2018 MAKING SENSE OF CHEMICAL PRICES SPECIAL REPORT ICIS TOP 40 POWER PLAYERS Phil Arthur JOSEPH CHANG NEW YORK We are delighted to present the 2017 ICIS based on vision, achievement, Top 40 Power Players, a global ranking of investment, financial performance, the key CEOs and senior executives culture change, mergers and acquisitions, making the greatest positive impact on restructuring and leadership in the their companies and the industry. The company, as well as external ICIS Top 40 Power Players are selected by organisations. It was a dynamic year, with the ICIS senior editorial staff worldwide no shortage of great candidates. www.icis.com 15 December 2017-4 January 2018 | ICIS Chemical Business | 27 SPECIAL REPORT ICIS TOP 40 POWER PLAYERS LyondellBasell’s Patel climbs to top LyondellBasell’s CEO, Bob Patel, has kicked off a new multibillion dollar PO/TBA project in the US, along with a Hyperzone HDPE plant using its proprietary technology JOSEPH CHANG NEW YORK pacities of 470,000 tonnes/year of PO and 1m BOB PATEL tonnes/year of TBA upon completion sched- aking a disciplined approach to capi- 1 CEO uled for mid-2021. tal spending, LyondellBasell, led by LYONDELLBASELL The PO will be sold mostly in the domestic CEO Bob Patel since the start of 2015, market as a key component in the production has made incremental ethylene ca- of polyurethanes. The TBA will be converted T pacity expansions through the US shale gas to methyl tertiary butyl ether (MTBE) and boom rather than building a new cracker. ethyl tertiary butyl ether (ETBE) at its Bayport These high-return expansions of existing Complex near Pasadena, Texas. facilities have added capacity about equiva- Patel is shifting the mindset of the compa- lent to a world-scale cracker, setting the stage ny and increasing its capabilities to be able to for its downstream Hyperzone polyethylene work on multiple projects at once. (PE) investment, and giving it the financial flexibility to take on a huge propylene oxide/ POLYPROPYLENE POTENTIAL tertiary butyl alcohol (PO/TBA) project, both Next up is a potential polypropylene (PP) pro- on the US Gulf Coast. ject in the US as well as a propane dehydroge- The new investments represent the culmi- nation (PDH) project for propylene produc- nation of LyondellBasell’s disciplined strate- tion. A decision on the projects will be made gy and execution, and have propelled Patel by the end of 2018, Patel told ICIS in an inter- to the top of the 2017 ICIS Top 40 Power view in October. Players ranking. “Frankly, we are evaluating our propylene “This recognition is one that I share with strategy longer term. We are a significant the more than 13,000 employees around the buyer today,” he said. world who are setting new benchmarks for The PP project would be to mostly meet excellence every day,” said Patel. “While we domestic demand, in contrast to many PE continue to remain focused on the fundamen- BOB PATEL projects in the US that are targeted for signifi- tals of safety, reliability and cost, we are also CEO, LyondellBasell cant exports. thinking about the future and how our great “While we continue to remain focused company will become even stronger in the M&A STRATEGY coming years.” on the fundamentals of safety, The company made waves in late October as The Hyperzone project in La Porte, Texas, reliability and cost, we are also The Wall Street Journal reported it made a US will add about 500,000 tonnes/year of thinking about the future and how our takeover approach for Brazil-based polyole- high density PE (HDPE) capacity with start-up great company will become even fins producer Braskem. While LyondellBasell expected in mid-2019. LyondellBasell’s Hy- stronger in the coming years” would not comment on this, investors ex- perzone PE technology is a cascade gas-phase pressed excitement on a potential deal, send- process based on the company’s multizone ing shares of both companies higher. circulating reactor technology. focus on safety, operations and cost competi- LyondellBasell highlighted mergers and ac- Hyperzone can produce a wide range of tiveness, we are strong in process and catalyst quisitions (M&A) as a potential growth driver multi-modal HDPE resins, meaning it com- technologies for polyolefins. We aim to be a for the first time at its Investor Day in New bines the benefits of low molecular-weight solutions provider for customers by leverag- York in April 2017. During that Investor Day, and high molecular-weight PE. As a result, ing our rich history of technologies from pre- the company estimated it could raise up to products made with Hyperzone PE can main- decessor companies such as BASF, Montedi- $18bn in 10-year debt at an interest rate of tain strength and durability while still being son, Hoechst and Arco Chemical.” around 4.3%, while maintaining an invest- light weight and easy to process, according to ment grade credit rating. the company. BOOSTING INTERMEDIATES Patel simply says the company will contin- “This is a higher performance PE than what LyondellBasell will also boost its footprint in ue its disciplined approach to M&A. “We are we’ve produced in the past,” said Patel in a intermediates with its $2.4bn PO/TBA project thoughtful and patient, and not anxious that recent interview with ICIS. “In addition to our in Channelview, Texas, which will have ca- we have to get something done,” he said. ■ 28 | ICIS Chemical Business | 15 December 2017-4 January 2018 www.icis.com SPECIAL REPORT ICIS TOP 40 POWER PLAYERS NEOS chairman, Jim Ratcliffe, maintains (VLGCs) for its cracker in Cologne, Germany. JIM RATCLIFFE his number two position in the Top 40 after Also in Europe, INEOS started expanding its 2 CHAIRMAN I a year of innovative activity, especially in ethyl acetate site at Hull, northeast England. INEOS Europe, at the privately-owned commodity The 100,000 tonnes/year expansion is ex- player. On 12 June, the company announced pected to increase the plant’s nameplate ca- plans to spend $2bn to build a propane dehy- pacity to 345,000 tonnes/year. INEOS said drogenation (PDH) unit in Europe and to ex- that it expected works to be complete by the pand its gas crackers at Grangemouth in the end of this year. UK, and Rafnes in Norway. These plants will In September, INEOS Oxide revealed plans tap into the significant investment by INEOS to build a vinyl acetate monomer (VAM) plant in shale gas logistics infrastructure. Accord- with annual production capacity of 300,000 ing to the company on 13 June, the new PDH tonnes in Europe with capital expenditure project will rely on shale gas with a propor- (capex) between €100m and €500m. tion coming from the US. Away from chemicals Ratcliffe launched a And in March, INEOS said it had signed a project to create his own version of the Land contract with Oiltanking Antwerp Gas Ter- Rover Defender. Manufacturing facility’s costs minal (OTAGT) to construct the largest bu- would be around £250m, with production ca- tane storage tank ever built in Europe, allow- pacity for between 10,000 to 20,000 units. In ing the group to import butane from the US October he also purchased the UK Belstaff and world markets in very large gas carriers motorcycle clothing brand. ■ eading one of the world’s largest chemi- complexity of the DowDuPont break-up plan is EDWARD BREEN cal companies following the comple- unprecedented. However, investors are looking 3 CEO L tion of the merger between Dow Chemi- to Breen to deliver as a “breakup specialist” after DOWDUPONT cal and DuPont in September 2017, Breen earlier leading industrial firm Tyco Internation- has the monumental task of separating the al. Their confidence is noted in DowDuPont’s businesses into at least three separate com- steadily rising stock price since its creation. panies – one focused on Materials Science, In September 2017, DowDuPont started up one on Agriculture and the other on Special- its 1.5m tonne/year ethane cracker in Freeport, ty Products in 18-24 months from the com- Texas, US, along with its 400,000 tonne/year pletion of the combination. ELITE polyethylene unit downstream. It also Extracting at least $3bn in cost synergies expects to start up its 350,000 tonne/year low and $1bn in growth synergies is also a major density polyethylene (LDPE) plant in Plaquem- goal from the merger. Breen has signaled that ine, Louisiana, US, by the end of 2017. all options are on the table in terms of further DowDuPont is planning another $4bn in separations in the Specialty Products busi- investments over the next five years – an ex- ness. Breen has to deal with activist investor pansion of its newly started Freeport cracker Third Point, which had been advocating for to 2m tonnes/year, along with a new 600,000 additional business separations to maximise tonne/year polyethylene (PE) plant on the US shareholder value. Gulf Coast and a worldscale polyolefins plant Even under the current plant, the scale and in Europe. ■ or years, Thomas was the face of Bayer The company’s net income more than dou- PATRICK THOMAS Materials Science, one of the three pil- bled year on year in 2016, and cashflow has 4 CEO F lars of the venerable German business.