The Ministry of Commerce recently issued a bulletin saying that since December 29, 2018, it has imposed anti-dumping duties on imported n-butanol originating in Taiwan, Malaysia and the United States.

Among them, the anti-dumping tax rate of Taiwan Plastic Industry Co., Ltd. in Taiwan is 6%, and that of other Taiwan companies is 56.1%; the anti-dumping tax rate of Eurasian companies in the United States is 52.2%, that of Eastman Chemical Company, Dow Chemical Company, Basf Company and other American companies is 139.3%; and the marketing of Malaysian Petrochemical Derivatives Company/Malaysian Petrochemical Company (Na) Fujian) Limited has an anti-dumping tax rate of 12.7%, while Basf Malaysian National Petroleum Chemicals Private Limited, Obertimo Malaysian Chemicals and other Malaysian companies have a tax rate of 26.7%.

On December 29, 2017, the Ministry of Commerce decided to conduct an anti-dumping investigation on imported n-butanol originating in Taiwan, Malaysia and the United States.

N-butanol is an important organic chemical raw material. It is mainly used in the production of downstream products such as butyl acrylate, butyl acetate, dibutyl phthalate, butylamine and ethylene glycol monobutyl ether. It is widely used in coatings, textile auxiliaries, plasticizers and other fields. N-butanol is also an extractant of oils, biochemicals and spices, an additive of alkyd resin coatings, and also used in the manufacture of surfactants.

In recent years, with the rapid development of domestic paint industry, domestic paint raw material enterprises have also grown up, and can independently produce and develop a variety of high-quality products. However, there is still a big gap between the development of downstream derivatives of n-butanol with high added value and high technology content and that of foreign countries. Some derivatives with special performance and high added value still need to be imported.

On January 29, the inventory of zinc ingots in London LME market was 114 650 tons, with a decrease of 600 tons, representing a decrease of 0.52%.

On January 29, the LME zinc ingot inventory was 114 650 tons, of which 57 050 tons were registered warehouse receipts, 57 650 tons were cancelled warehouse receipts, accounting for 49.76%.

The London Metal Exchange (LME) said it had lifted the temporary ban on the storage of Russian aluminium in LME warehouses immediately after the United States removed Russian aluminium from the sanctions list.

LME’s notification to its members indicates that all Russian-aluminium metals can be approved as the metals listed in the registered warehouse receipt.

Alcoa recently announced that the Foreign Asset Management Office of the U.S. Treasury will remove Alcoa and En, the company’s largest shareholder, from its list of designated nationals and restricted persons, with immediate effect at about 4.15 p.m. on January 27, U.S. time. The Group expects that the settlement and settlement procedures will now return to normal.

“To avoid doubt, this means that all Russian aluminium metals can be approved as registered warehouse receipts (delivered to warehouses approved by LME),” LME wrote in a circular to members, warehousing companies and their London agents.

China Petrochemical, the world’s largest refinery, released its annual performance report for 2018 on May 25, showing that its net profit in 2018 is expected to grow 22.04% year-on-year, reaching 62.4 billion yuan.

In 2018, facing the severe and complicated market situation, Sinopec will take deepening the structural reform of supply side as the main line, comprehensively promote optimization, market expansion, cost reduction, risk control, reform promotion, strict management, strong innovation, Talent Gathering and other work, and achieve good results in production and operation.

Firstly, the company’s production operation was optimized and improved last year. The upstream plate promotes stable and restored production of crude oil and effective production of natural gas, and achieves tangible results in stabilizing oil, increasing gas and reducing cost. The refining sector adheres to market orientation, vigorously optimizes product structure, satisfactorily completes the task of upgrading the quality of Guoliu Oil, actively supports sales and expands the market, and fully guarantees the supply of chemical raw materials. The chemical industry sector seizes the favorable market opportunity, closely links production and marketing, deepens the adjustment of equipment, raw materials and product structure, continues to reduce the cost of raw materials per ton of ethylene, and the proportion of high value-added products of the three major synthetic materials continues to increase.

Secondly, the company’s market development has achieved results. Oil sales actively make good use of the internal production and marketing coordination policy, strive to fight the market hard, in the fierce competition to stabilize sales, domestic oil products business growth year-on-year. Chemical sales have strengthened the links between production, marketing and research, deepened fine marketing and precise service, and continuously improved market leadership. The business volume of chemical products has increased over the previous year. Natural gas sales should strengthen the overall planning of self-produced gas and imported LNG resources, and strengthen the development of pipeline and terminal market. Refining sales have made great efforts to enlarge the scale of operation, with the volume of operations exceeding 40 million tons for the first time. The total amount of lube oil business increased by 5% over the previous year, and the sales of high-end products increased by 10%.

Thirdly, the restructuring of the company was well advanced last year. A batch of new discoveries have been made in oil and gas exploration, and key productivity construction has been accelerated. Weirong shale gas field has become another new productivity construction position after Fuling shale gas field. New steps have been taken in the construction of refining and chemical bases, and a number of oil quality upgrading and refining and chemical structural adjustment projects have been implemented in an orderly manner. The construction of new energy comprehensive demonstration stations has been steadily carried out, and new breakthroughs have been made in overseas petrol retail business. Tianjin LNG and E’ancang pipelines have been built and put into operation together, and Wen23 gas storage and transportation facilities have been accelerated. Easy to send customers, petrochemical e-commerce, Easy to Jie e-commerce and other platforms have developed rapidly. Clean energy business such as geothermal and waste heat utilization has developed steadily.

Finally, Sinopec has made great achievements in scientific and technological innovation last year. We will deepen the reform of the scientific and technological system, stimulate innovation and creativity, increase key core technologies, and promote leading research on cutting-edge technologies to achieve a number of new achievements and new progress. Especially, the new structured zeolite materials have been awarded structural codes by the International Zeolite Association, so as to achieve zero breakthroughs in this field for Chinese enterprises. It has won one second prize for technological invention, three second prizes for scientific and technological progress, 7184 patents and 5241 authorized patents throughout the year, all of which have reached a record high and continue to rank among the leading state-owned enterprises.

Sinopec officials said that in 2018, the company earnestly fulfilled its social responsibility, intensified counterpart support and targeted poverty alleviation efforts to help win the battle of precise poverty alleviation; facing the tense situation of natural gas supply in winter, we should speed up the construction of production, supply, storage and marketing system, expand resources in every possible way, and actively guarantee the stable supply of civil natural gas.

According to the news, Japan’s oil imports fell to the lowest level since 1979 in 2018, while LNG imports and coal imports also declined, reflecting the country’s population decline and slowing economic growth. These data also highlight the rise in energy efficiency and the emergence of alternative fuels for power generation and transportation, while Japan’s growth in nuclear output last year further reduced fossil fuel imports.

Japan’s Ministry of Finance said Wednesday that crude oil imports cleared by Japanese Customs fell 5.8% year on year in 2018. Preliminary data show that Japan, the world’s fourth largest importer of crude oil, imported 3 million barrels of crude oil a day last year, or 17587 million litres. A customs official said it was the lowest level since records began in 1979.

Nevertheless, as the average annual price of crude oil rises, import costs have risen by 25% over the same period last year. LNG imports fell by 0.9% to 82.8554 million tons, the lowest since 2011, but their value increased by 21%. Japan is the world’s largest importer of liquefied natural gas. Data show that imports of power coal for power generation fell by 0.6% to 136.7 million tons in 2018.

Japan’s imports of fossil fuels in December of last year and the whole year of 2018 showed a daily output of 1 million barrels of crude oil, 1 million litres of petroleum products and gasoline/naphtha, and 1 million tons of liquefied natural gas, liquefied petroleum gas and coal, valued at millions of yen.