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[International Situation]：Russia opposed sanctions, expelled officials in Russia and the United States, and demanded that the natural gas be settled in rubles. Basvgasma factory MDI declared force majeure, and Mitsui Chemical PTA factory closed

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Russia expelled officials in Russia and the United States and demanded to settle natural gas in rubles.

In the early morning of March 24, according to CCTV News reports, the Russian Foreign Ministry announced the expulsion of American diplomats to Russia.

According to foreign media reports, Russian President Putin issued an instruction requiring Gazprom to change the contract settlement conditions to be settled in rubles. Putin stressed that the delivery will continue according to the quantity and price stipulated in the contract.

Only using rubles to pay is bound to affect the transaction of imported natural gas in Europe. With the concern of declining supply, European natural gas once soared by more than 36%, and then fell back to 18%.

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Russian natural gas is very important to various economic activities in Europe. According to CCTV News, on March 23, local time, bujanel, president of France total energy group, said that France cannot give up Russian natural gas, russian natural gas is irreplaceable. Without Russian natural gas, a considerable part of European economic activities would stagnate.

Pan Helin, co-director and researcher of the Digital Economy and Financial Innovation Research Center of Zhejiang University International Joint Business School, analyzed that the natural gas transactions between Russia and Europe were generally settled in euros, as Europe now imposes swift sanctions on Russia on the "financial nuclear bomb", it cannot use either euros or rubles. If Europe wants to buy Russian energy at present, it needs to seek special channels, such as banks without sanctions in swift. However, if Russia rejects other potential alternative payment methods and now only agrees to the rouble transaction, then if Europe wants to buy Russian natural gas, it is equivalent to objectively lifting swift sanctions.

However, if Europe resolutely does not use Russian energy, then Russia's policy of asking the other side to settle with rubles is not good for Russia, because this will make Russia's only few energy demand providers stand back. Therefore, it ultimately depends on whether Europe insists on imposing sanctions on Russia in terms of energy. If the implementation is extremely firm, Russia's move will have the opposite effect.

Panhelin believes that the current fact is that Europe may not be able to bear the withdrawal of Russian energy. Now in the global energy increment, American shale oil is still subject to the supply chain disorder after the epidemic, and the labor force is insufficient, while the Middle East energy countries do not increase production, so there are not many choices in Europe as the place of energy import. If Europe does not want to bear high oil prices and high gas prices, they may still consider going back to buy Russian energy. It is expected that after the end of the Russian-Ukrainian War, Europe will probably reopen to buy Russian energy.

BASF gasma factory MDI announces force majeure

the market learned that on March 22, 2022 local time, BASF released a message saying that in March 2022, BASF's 400,000-ton/year MDI unit located in the North American gasma factory had unexpected equipment failures, to affect the operation capability of the factory, BASF announced that the force majeure of all MDI products and products containing MDI components will take effect immediately. At present, BASF is actively repairing the equipment. At present, it is predicted that the production interruption will last for about 3 weeks.

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Mitsui Chemical PTA plant closed

on March 15, PTA giant Mitsui Chemical announced that it planned to close the operation of the PTA plant in Japan's Yamato in August 2023. The production capacity of this factory is 400,000 tons/year.

Mitsui Chemical began to produce terephthalic acid with proprietary technology on an industrial scale in its Yanguo Dazhu factory in 1958. In the following years, the increase of refining process and production capacity brought the annual output of the factory to 750,000 tons, some of which were exported to other countries. Since the mid-2000s, the sharp increase of PTA manufacturing facilities (mainly in China) has led to a slowdown in market conditions and a decline in domestic demand in Japan. Although PTA production capacity has been reduced and some rationalization measures have been taken, Mitsui Chemical believes that it will not be feasible to ensure sufficient income to maintain Japan's PTA production.

Although Mitsui Chemical Group will no longer produce PTA in Japan, it will maintain the existing domestic market sales structure shares by selling PTA co., Ltd imported from Thailand's joint venture GC-M, which holds 26% shares in Mitsui Chemical, PTT Global Chemical Group holds the remaining 74%.

Source: eighth element plastic version

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