Trade wars, KMCO layoffs and vanishing tax credits
China tariffs hit U.S. LNG market
China said it will raise tariffs on U.S. LNG to 25 percent, part of a broad retaliation to President Donald Trump's announcement last week he was raising tariffs on $200 billion in Chinese goods. The new tariffs come as U.S. LNG exports are growing quickly, up more than 35 percent increase over 12 months earlier. Last year China was the fourth largest importer of U.S. LNG, after Japan, South Korea and Mexico, according to the Department of Energy. Several key U.S.-made chemicals also will be hit by China in the latest round of tariffs in an escalating trade war.
Equinor expands Gulf stake
A month after Royal Dutch Shell agreed to sell its stake in a major Gulf of Mexico asset to the Delek Group for nearly $1 billion, the Norwegian energy company Equinor has stepped in to buy it from Shell instead. Equinor decided to take advantage of its preferential rights and buy the stake for the same price, upping its ownership percentage from 23.55 percent to 46 percent, making Equinor the largest owner of the CaesarTonga project in the deep-water Gulf.
Layoffs follow KMCO fire
The chemical maker KMCO is terminating 35 employees at its plant in Crosby more than a month after a deadly explosion killed one and injured several others. The layoffs announced Wednesday mean KMCO is reducing its workforce of almost 200 employees at the Crosby plant by nearly 20 percent as a result of the fatal incident on April 2 and a subsequent reorganization. KMCO said last week that a burst pipe was at fault for the explosion and resulting fire. The pipeline carried isobutelyne, a flammable gas.
Weatherford delisted
The oil field services company Weatherford International is now trading as a penny stock after being delisted from the New York Stock Exchange. The NYSE decision came a few days after the Swiss company with principal offices in Houston announced it had reached a deal with its top creditors and plans to file for Chapter 11 bankruptcy by July 15. Weatherford had been trading below $1 per share since mid-November. The stock last traded at 37 cents a share.
Chemical recycling bill approved
The Texas Legislature has passed a bill that would support a fledgling industry that aims to reduce waste by returning plastic back to its original chemical components, which can then be reused for fuels and feedstocks of new plastic products. The bill, supported by chemical makers such as Chevron Phillips Chemical of The Woodlands and the Texas oil major Exxon Mobil, is a response to the growing public outcry over plastic waste that is choking the world’s oceans, contaminating soil and threatening marine and wild life.
Wind rush for expiring tax credit
Wind developers are rushing to launch new projects before federal subsidies expire. The Department of Energy predicted that new U.S. wind capacity will total 12.7 gigawatts this year, more than was added each year during the past six years, but not quite reaching the record 13.3 gigawatts of new capacity set in 2012, the last time subsidies for wind projects were on the chopping block. To get the full value of the credit wind farms must begin construction by Dec. 31 and start operations by the end of 2020.