Nynas

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Nynas
legal form FROM
founding 1928
Seat Stockholm , SwedenSwedenSweden 
management Bo Askvik (Managing Director)
Number of employees approx. 1000 (2019)
sales approx. 17 billion Skr
Branch Chemistry, plant engineering
Website http://www.nynas.com/

Nynas , formerly Nynäs Petroleum , is a Swedish manufacturer of naphthenic oils (e.g. transformer oil ) and bitumen . The largest single owner is the Finnish company Neste with 50 percent. The second major shareholder is an independent Swedish foundation, while a smaller stake is owned by Petróleos de Venezuela (PDVSA).

activity

The core activity of Nynas is the refinement of crude oil into special products in two main areas: naphthenic special oils (transformer oil, process oils , base oils and tire oils ) and bitumen . Bitumen is used as a binder for street asphalt and in industrial applications such as roofing or as a protection against corrosion. Certain by-products also arise during refining. These are mainly sold as raw materials for vehicle fuels.

Nynas products are manufactured in refineries on several continents. Three of the plants - Harburg, Gothenburg and Nynäshamn - are owned by Nynas, while the Eastham refinery is operated as a joint venture with Shell. However, there are also a number of external production facilities that are linked to the company through cooperation agreements. Nynas operates its own quality control and product development laboratories, including in Belgium, Great Britain and Sweden.

Extensive investments have been made in recent years to increase raw material flexibility and completely replace Venezuelan crude oil. This applies to crude oil from the North Sea as well as from Brazil, Colombia, Russia and Italy, among others.

In addition to sales offices around the world, Nynas also has access to a global distribution network. This includes three central storage facilities and mixing plants (nodes), 44 local depots and 42 sales offices in 32 countries. The naphthenic special oils are sold all over the world, while the bitumen products are only sold in Europe.

Nynas employs around 1000 people. After a peak of 22.5 billion SEK in 2014, sales decreased in the following years and are currently around 17 billion SEK.

history

Archive image from the 1950s of a Nynas gas station in Sweden.

In February 1928 construction began on the first Swedish refinery in Nynäshamn, which began operations in December. The founder was Axel Ax: son Johnson. He was a shipowner and industrialist who needed diesel oil for his ships and asphalt for his road construction company. For this reason, he hired Charles Almqvist , who brought experience from the Werner Queensland oil refinery in the USA and was also head of the largest refinery in Argentina. This laid the foundation for what would later become the Nynäs Petroleum company.

With the advent of automobilism, the demand for gasoline also increased. The problem was that conventional refining processes could only extract around 15 percent of gasoline from oil. In 1931, Axel Ax: son Johnson decided to invest in a new cracking plant. That was the starting signal for the development of a nationwide petrol station network in Sweden, which Nynas was to operate for the next 50 years. The expansion of the Swedish infrastructure, including with new asphalt roads, required large amounts of bitumen. To meet this demand, the Gothenburg refinery was built in 1956.

In the early 1970s, Nynas was a family-owned Swedish oil company with no long-term contracts to supply crude oil. That was not a problem as long as the price of crude oil was low and stable, but with the onset of the oil crisis, Nynas got into a serious cost crisis. The salvation was to leave the fuel market and focus on a few specialty products, which required market expansion outside of Sweden. The first step in the new strategy was taken in 1981 when all of the petrol stations and the subsidiaries that sold fuel oils were sold to Shell.

In order to grow in the bitumen sector, a refinery in Antwerp was acquired in 1985 and the British Briggs Oil with refineries in Dundee and Eastham in the early 1990s. At the same time, hundreds of millions of Swedish kronor were invested in converting the Nynäshamn refinery into a modern plant for the production of special naphthenic oils for industry. As a result, Nynas had transformed from a Swedish oil company with a traditional offering into a global group with a focus on specialty products.

Starting on January 1, 2014, Nynas will take over essential parts of the Hamburg-Harburg refinery from Shell Deutschland Oil GmbH . The conversion into a special oil refinery was initiated in 2014. The reason for this was an expected demand for naphthenic special oils, especially in Asia. The acquisition, which involved major investments in rebuilding part of the facility previously used for fuel production, was completed in 2016. The new special oil refinery enabled an annual production increase of 350,000 tons.

2017 ushered in a period that brought significant financial problems due to the increasingly tense political and economic situation in Venezuela. At the beginning, this leads to disruptions in crude oil deliveries, which have gradually been completely stopped due to the far-reaching sanctions against Venezuela introduced by the USA. During a transitional period, business operations were able to continue thanks to an exception - the so-called General License - that Nynas received from the US Office of Foreign Assets Control (OFAC). The exception allowed other companies to continue trading with Nynas without violating US sanctions. However, the situation remained unsustainable from an economic point of view and in 2019 a request for reorganization submitted by Nynas was approved by a Swedish court in order to find ways to continue the business in part or in full.

In May 2020, OFAC announced that Nynas will no longer be banned under the sanctions due to changes in the company's ownership structure. As a result, American individuals and companies no longer required OFAC approval for transactions and activities in which Nynas was involved.

The reorganization included changes to the ownership structure of Nynas. In a first step, the Venezuelan state oil company PDVSA reduced its stake in Nynas shares to 15 percent of the existing shares. The 35 percent that PDVSA sold was transferred to an independent Swedish foundation, while Finnish Neste retained its 50 percent stake.

swell

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Annual Report 2018 (PDF; 2.3 MB)
  2. ↑ Nynas reorganization. | Agricultural headquarters. Retrieved May 29, 2020 .
  3. ^ Nynas annual reports. Retrieved May 29, 2020 .
  4. ↑ Hedengren, Uriel: 75 years old - looking back , p. 29. AB Nynäs Petroleum, 2003.
  5. ↑ Hedengren, Uriel: 75 years old - looking back , pp. 33–34. AB Nynäs Petroleum, 2003.
  6. ↑ Hedengren, Uriel: 75 years old - looking back , pp. 33–37. AB Nynäs Petroleum, 2003.
  7. ↑ Nynas: EU Commission approves Nynas takeover of base oil plant in Germany ( Memento from October 15, 2013 in the Internet Archive )
  8. ↑ Green light for takeover Announcement by the EU Commission of September 2, 2013 (accessed on October 15, 2013)
  9. ↑ Swedish refiner Nynas Proposes restructuring to escape US sanctions . In: Reuters . January 21, 2020 ( reuters.com [accessed May 29, 2020]).
  10. ^ Removal of Venezuela-related General License 13E, Issuance of Venezuela-related General Licenses 3H and 9G, and Amended Frequently Asked Questions. Retrieved May 29, 2020 .
  11. ↑ Nynas reorganization. | Agricultural headquarters. Retrieved May 29, 2020 .
  12. ^ Nynas exits US sanctions. Retrieved May 29, 2020 .