Petroleum Chemistry Market – Growth Against Backdoor Sales
State Company Metafrax position can be considered as stable, taking in account the duration of the partner relations with its clients and increasing wholesale trades efficiency.
On the April, 5-6, Oleg Mamaev, General Director of Trading House Metafrax, visited the annual industrial conference Petroleum Chemistry In Russia And CIS. During the event, the big methanol, ammonia and urea production projects in Russia review and the latest chemical methane containing natural gas processing technologies were presented.
Representatives of the largest petroleum chemistry companies took part in this conference. Some of them were State Company Metafrax partners – Sibur, Lukoil, EuroHim, State Company Titan, etc.
Oleg Mamaev considers this event format as effective:
- It is a good site for communication with the industrial community representatives. It allows to get a foretaste of the situation and tendencies in the market and to communicate with the key industry players.
Regarding the general Russian petroleum chemistry market state, the manager thinks that this situation is not advantageous. He indicates the general instability, direct correlation between the markets and the oil price, as well as the reduced demand against the new facilities construction
- Now, in the methanol market, we can see the internal and export price speculative tendencies. Increased Russian market is in proficit state now. However, Metafrax position can be considered as stable; from the one hand, the company has contracts for the main kinds of its production. From the other hand, according to the Price Committee decisions, some of the production is on sale in terms of spot transactions. With the long-term rent of the tank farm in the Baltics (Finland) it is possible to transfer the methanol directly to the European users.
Moreover, one of the main Metafrax production users, Nizhnekamskneftehim (NKNH), the biggest Russian synthetic rubber and plastics, is expanding its capacity. According to Rupec, as the modernization result, the company isoprene rubber СКИ-3 production capacity shall increase from 280 thousand tons to 330 thousand tons. Also, NKNH is planning to finish the butyl rubber plant capacity increasing project. This revamping shall allow to increase the production outlet values up to 220 thousand tons to implement the contracts with the world tire vendors, particularly, with Pirelli, Michelin, Bridgestone.
- That means that in 2018, just for isoprene, we will need 330 thousand tons of the methanol, plus we need it for the methyl tertiary butyl ether production. – Added Oleg Mamaev. – Despite the difficult economic situation, with these factors we can face the near-term outlook with confidence.