Epoxy
February 17, 2021
Gulf Coast Update
US Gulf Coast ice storms cause chems production freeze
Author: Tom Brown
2021/02/16
LONDON (ICIS)–An almost unprecedented polar storm sweeping across the US Gulf Coast states has led to shutdowns and production cuts at a swathe of petrochemicals plants and refineries in the area, as well as throttling transport and leaving millions without power.
Temperatures in the Houston petrochemicals hub remained at -8 degrees Celsius (17 degrees Fahrenheit) on Tuesday morning local time, some of the coldest conditions on records on the region.
Freezing conditions have been recorded across much of the central US.
With petrochemicals complexes in Texas and Louisiana more set up for intense heat through much of the year rather than sub-zero conditions, players across the region have moved to limit or shut down production entirely.
On 15 February news emerged of Motiva, Marathon and CITGO announcing refinery shutdowns, while Total shut off its coker and crude distillation units at Port Arthur.
LyondellBasell reported operating its Houston refinery and methyl tertiary butyl ether (MTBE) complex at minimum rates due to the weather, while TPC has shut down its Houston butadiene unit due to steam loss.
OQ Chem declared force majeure at its Bay City, Texas, complex due to the weather on Tuesday.
February 17, 2021
Airport Parking
Stunning Images Reveal Massive Commercial Jet Parking Lot Amid Travel Collapse
by Tyler DurdenTuesday, Feb 16, 2021 – 22:10
Pilot and photographer Jassen Todorov captured stunning images of hundreds of commercial jets parked in airfields across the US amid the downturn in air travel thanks to the virus pandemic, according to Daily Mail.
Todorov’s images include billions of dollars worth of commercial jets parked at dusty airfields across the country.
The images give light to new data from travel firm Cirium, who outlines in a recent report the number of single-aisle aircraft in service has plunged since the beginning of the year amid a flare-up of US COVID-19 cases and increased restrictions.
Cirium’s data showed single-aisle aircraft in service fell below the 8.8k mark on Feb. 5, a drop of 15% compared with Jan. 3 figures.
Following months of surging air travel numbers into the 2020 holiday season, US passenger volumes dove in late January to their lowest levels in six months.
Todorov captured more pictures of commercial jets parked at airfields. It appears reopening optimism two months into vaccination rollouts has yet to bring a “V-shaped” recovery to the airline industry.
Demand for used private jets is soaring as rich people do not want to fly first class anymore amid fears of being infected.
On top of this all, remote working and teleconferencing have resulted in a permanent shift lower in business travel, which was the bulk of all travel. The pandemic is expected to keep commercial airlines in a state of depression for a few years.
February 17, 2021
Airport Parking
Stunning Images Reveal Massive Commercial Jet Parking Lot Amid Travel Collapse
by Tyler DurdenTuesday, Feb 16, 2021 – 22:10
Pilot and photographer Jassen Todorov captured stunning images of hundreds of commercial jets parked in airfields across the US amid the downturn in air travel thanks to the virus pandemic, according to Daily Mail.
Todorov’s images include billions of dollars worth of commercial jets parked at dusty airfields across the country.
The images give light to new data from travel firm Cirium, who outlines in a recent report the number of single-aisle aircraft in service has plunged since the beginning of the year amid a flare-up of US COVID-19 cases and increased restrictions.
Cirium’s data showed single-aisle aircraft in service fell below the 8.8k mark on Feb. 5, a drop of 15% compared with Jan. 3 figures.
Following months of surging air travel numbers into the 2020 holiday season, US passenger volumes dove in late January to their lowest levels in six months.
Todorov captured more pictures of commercial jets parked at airfields. It appears reopening optimism two months into vaccination rollouts has yet to bring a “V-shaped” recovery to the airline industry.
Demand for used private jets is soaring as rich people do not want to fly first class anymore amid fears of being infected.
On top of this all, remote working and teleconferencing have resulted in a permanent shift lower in business travel, which was the bulk of all travel. The pandemic is expected to keep commercial airlines in a state of depression for a few years.
February 15, 2021
Epoxy Comments from Huntsman’s Investors Call
Angel Castillo — Morgan Stanley — Analyst
Hi, good morning. Thanks for taking my question. Peter I was just hoping you could unpack a little bit more on the Advanced Materials segment in your outlook and what you’re seeing. From an end market perspective you talked about aerospace, but if you could touch on some of the other end markets that you have and what you’re seeing? And on top of that, I guess, I was also wondering, you talked about that segment as a core platform for growth in M&A and there is a lot going on right now with some of the acquisitions that you’ve recently done. So curious from a capacity perspective operationally, is there any constraints as to limitation of how much more M&A you can do kind of in the near term for that segment? Do you kind of take a pause until you’ve done Gabriel, fully integrated or is there an opportunity to do something kind of near-term still?
Peter R. Huntsman — Chairman of the Board, President and Chief Executive Officer
Well, yes, I think Angel that’s an excellent question. I think that as we look at Advanced Materials, in the script, we talked about it being a platform for internal investment and organic expansion. And so I think that we see a lot of opportunities, particularly around power and around electronics. So when you think of the power grid system that has to be built, if you’re going to be connecting all of these windmills and solar plants and all these new sources of electricity, the build out of a smart grid or just the addition of a dumb grid I guess, either one of those a smart grid or a dumb grid, we’re going to be involved in the build out of the electronic infrastructure, the power lines, the transformers and so forth. That’s a very profitable end of our business. And we also look at the electronic side of what we’re doing.
This is an area as well when you think about the shortages that are taking place around the automotive industry. It is an excellent question that was earlier asked and you look at the average electric vehicle is going to take 4 times the amount of semiconductor capacity as an ice vehicle. So as you look at those end-use applications, I think that those are all areas of growth and a lot of what we are going to be doing in Advanced Materials. These are new fields. I mean as we look at our Performance Products and we look at expanding some of our products that will be going into the battery technology. These are areas where you got and you buy competition, because nobody is doing it right now. And we think that we’ve got an expertise, a lot of the amines that potentially will be used for carbon capture and sequestration.
We’ve talked in the past about our ability to produce nano technologies around carbon and this part of carbon capture and so forth. A lot of these areas are areas that we have technology, we have know-how and we want to develop these end use markets and we think that with this transition going into this greener economy, not only will there be some sort of a subsidy and help in doing some of those sort of things. Food taxes and so forth, but we think that the market will be there as well. So when we talk about internal opportunities for Advanced Materials and Performance Products and the other divisions as well, we see real opportunities there.
But again I’d also just say that with the recent acquisitions we’ve done, areas around curing agents in coatings, again we have an opportunity to take those acquisitions and to give our existing customer base and our expanding customer base a wider portfolio of services, products, formulations, components and I think that, as I look at the Advanced Materials, yes, I see there is a potential platform for more M&A, but I’m especially excited to see about what it could do by improving the bottom line, by integrating what we purchased, by becoming more streamlined in the costs and by capitalizing on small but manageable expansions that will be going into new and bolder opportunities going forward.
February 15, 2021
Epoxy Comments from Huntsman’s Investors Call
Angel Castillo — Morgan Stanley — Analyst
Hi, good morning. Thanks for taking my question. Peter I was just hoping you could unpack a little bit more on the Advanced Materials segment in your outlook and what you’re seeing. From an end market perspective you talked about aerospace, but if you could touch on some of the other end markets that you have and what you’re seeing? And on top of that, I guess, I was also wondering, you talked about that segment as a core platform for growth in M&A and there is a lot going on right now with some of the acquisitions that you’ve recently done. So curious from a capacity perspective operationally, is there any constraints as to limitation of how much more M&A you can do kind of in the near term for that segment? Do you kind of take a pause until you’ve done Gabriel, fully integrated or is there an opportunity to do something kind of near-term still?
Peter R. Huntsman — Chairman of the Board, President and Chief Executive Officer
Well, yes, I think Angel that’s an excellent question. I think that as we look at Advanced Materials, in the script, we talked about it being a platform for internal investment and organic expansion. And so I think that we see a lot of opportunities, particularly around power and around electronics. So when you think of the power grid system that has to be built, if you’re going to be connecting all of these windmills and solar plants and all these new sources of electricity, the build out of a smart grid or just the addition of a dumb grid I guess, either one of those a smart grid or a dumb grid, we’re going to be involved in the build out of the electronic infrastructure, the power lines, the transformers and so forth. That’s a very profitable end of our business. And we also look at the electronic side of what we’re doing.
This is an area as well when you think about the shortages that are taking place around the automotive industry. It is an excellent question that was earlier asked and you look at the average electric vehicle is going to take 4 times the amount of semiconductor capacity as an ice vehicle. So as you look at those end-use applications, I think that those are all areas of growth and a lot of what we are going to be doing in Advanced Materials. These are new fields. I mean as we look at our Performance Products and we look at expanding some of our products that will be going into the battery technology. These are areas where you got and you buy competition, because nobody is doing it right now. And we think that we’ve got an expertise, a lot of the amines that potentially will be used for carbon capture and sequestration.
We’ve talked in the past about our ability to produce nano technologies around carbon and this part of carbon capture and so forth. A lot of these areas are areas that we have technology, we have know-how and we want to develop these end use markets and we think that with this transition going into this greener economy, not only will there be some sort of a subsidy and help in doing some of those sort of things. Food taxes and so forth, but we think that the market will be there as well. So when we talk about internal opportunities for Advanced Materials and Performance Products and the other divisions as well, we see real opportunities there.
But again I’d also just say that with the recent acquisitions we’ve done, areas around curing agents in coatings, again we have an opportunity to take those acquisitions and to give our existing customer base and our expanding customer base a wider portfolio of services, products, formulations, components and I think that, as I look at the Advanced Materials, yes, I see there is a potential platform for more M&A, but I’m especially excited to see about what it could do by improving the bottom line, by integrating what we purchased, by becoming more streamlined in the costs and by capitalizing on small but manageable expansions that will be going into new and bolder opportunities going forward.
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