Venezuela (44)

Brazil (429)

Argentina (79)

VENEZUELA

Reports: El Palito complex still offline contradicting PDVSA statement
Petróleos de Venezuela SA (PDVSA; Caracas) says that repair work and preparation for restart are ongoing at its refinery site in El Palito, Puerto Cabello, Venezuela. A power outage caused on 16 February affected the site's various...

Methanex to temporarily shut operations in Chile
Methanex says it expects to idle its Chile operation located at Cabo Negro, in March 2013 because of anticipated insufficient natural gas supply. Methanex is currently operating one plant in Chile at low operating rates. In 2013, planned output from this...

Sika acquires construction chemicals firm in Paraguay
Sika (Baar, Switzerland) says it has agreed to acquire Inatec (Asunción, Paraguay), the market leader in Paraguay in the area of construction chemicals. Financial details of the deal were not disclosed. Inatec, which was founded in 1982, is a privately...

Pemex restarts Camargo ammonia unit
Mexico's state oil company Pemex (Mexico City) says it has restarted its ammonia unit at Ciudad Camargo, Chihuahua state. The plant has been offline since 2002 and was restarted with an investment of $13 million, Pemex says. A fertilizer firm, Soluciones...

APLA 2012: Shale gas alters Latin America's prospects
Competitive raw materials stemming from shale gas development in the US have caused investors to reconsider the timing for planned world-scale projects in Latin America, with the exception of the 1 million m.t./year Ethylene XXI project, which...

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BRAZIL

Report: Brazil's Unigel mulling mid-2014 IPO
Unigel (São Paulo), Brazil's second-largest petrochemical manufacturer after Braskem (São Paulo), is considering an initial public offering for mid-2014, according to a report from Brazil's Agência Estado. The report notes that recent...

Monsanto receives regulatory approval from China for soybeans in Brazil
Monsanto announced it has received regulatory approval from China’s Ministry of Agriculture to launch its Intacta RR2 Pro soybeans in Brazil for the upcoming crop season. Along with Monstanto, multiple South American seed companies are anticipated to...

Petrobras to restructure petchems portfolio
Petrobras’s board has approved the restructuring of its petrochemical portfolio, including the merger of wholly owned subsidiaries Comperj Participações, Comperj Estirênicos, Comperj MEG, and Comperj Poliolefinas, the company...

Reports: Elekeiroz and Videolar competing to acquire Petrobras's styrene assets
Two companies remain in the race for the acquisition of Innova (São Paulo), the styrene unit of state-owned Petrobras, based at Triunfo, Brazil, according to Valor Econômico, a leading financial newspaper in Brazil. The sale of Innova was...

Ecolab to expand Brazil R&D center
Ecolab announced that it is expanding its research, development, and engineering (RD&E) center at Campinas, São Paulo—doubling its size to 1,300 sq meters.  The center includes labs for development oil and gas applications; industrial...

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ARGENTINA

Labor dispute affecting 2 petrochemical clusters in Argentina resolved
A labor strike affecting two Argentine petrochemical clusters—one comprising Gualeguaychú and Larroque and the other Zárate, Campana, Baradero—came to an end last night, according to a statement from Argentina's...

Uruguay's ALUR inaugurates second biodiesel facility
Alcoholes del Uruguay (ALUR; Montevideo) inaugurated on 12 June its second biodiesel production facility, the company has announced. The plant, at Capurro, Uruguay, has annual capacity for 65 million liters of biodiesel. Glycerine will also be manufactured as...

Argentina's basic chemical production drops 12% year-on-year in April
Argentina's production of basic chemicals fell 11.8% during April compared with the same period last year, according to the latest figures released by Indec, the government statistics office. The sector achieved a production improvement between March and...

Chile's SQM reports slight profit increase in first quarter
Sociedad Química y Minera de Chile (SQM; Santiago) recorded $152.7 million in net profit during the first quarter, a slight increase from the $151.8 million reported during the same period last year, the company has announced. Sales rose by about 18%...

EU dumping duties on biodiesel from Argentina and Indonesia come into force; EU trade body calls for higher antisubsidy duties
The European Commission's decision to impose provisional antidumping duties on biodiesel imported from Argentina and Indonesia has entered into force following its publication in the official journal of the European Union.  Argentinean biodiesel will...

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