Industry News
China's First Fully Integrated Refining, Petrochemicals and Fuels
Marketing Joint Ventures with Foreign Participation
Sinopec, Fujian Province, ExxonMobil and Saudi Aramco1 today held an inauguration ceremony at the Great Hall of the People in Beijing to mark the formal government approval of Joint Venture Contracts and granting of business licenses for their two joint ventures in Fujian Province – Fujian Refining & Petrochemical Company Limited and Sinopec SenMei (Fujian) Petroleum Company Limited.
The two joint ventures, with a total investment of about US$5 billion, are the first fully integrated refining, petrochemicals and fuels marketing project with foreign participation in China.
The Fujian Refining and Ethylene Joint Venture Project, located in Quanzhou, Fujian Province, will expand the existing refinery from 80,000 barrels-per-day (4 million tons-per-year) to 240,000 barrels-per-day (12 million tons-per-year). The upgraded refinery will primarily refine and process sour Arabian crude. In addition, the project will construct an 800,000 tons-per-year ethylene steam cracker, an 800,000 tons-per-year polyethylene unit, a 400,000 tons-per-year polypropylene unit and an aromatics complex to produce 700,000 tons-per-year of paraxylene. Support facilities including a 300,000 ton crude berth and power cogeneration will also be built. The joint venture company, formally registered as "Fujian Refining & Petrochemical Company Limited," will be owned by Fujian Petrochemical Company Limited (FPCL) (50 percent), ExxonMobil China Petroleum and Petrochemical Company Limited (25 percent) and Saudi Aramco Sino Company Limited (25 percent). The project is expected to start up in early 2009.
The Fujian Fuels Marketing Joint Venture, formally registered as "Sinopec SenMei (Fujian) Petroleum Company Limited," will manage and operate approximately 750 service stations and a network of terminals in Fujian Province. It will be owned by Sinopec (55 percent), ExxonMobil China Petroleum and Petrochemical Company Limited (22.5 percent) and Saudi Aramco Sino Company Limited (22.5 percent).
Together, the Fujian Refining and Ethylene Joint Venture Project and the Fujian Fuels Marketing Joint Venture will serve to meet China's rapidly growing demand for petroleum products and petrochemicals. Synergies from these two world-scale, integrated businesses, closely coupled with the strengths of the four partners and a long-term crude supply agreement with Saudi Aramco, significantly enhance the competitiveness of this project, and help ensure its world-class performance. It will also boost the development of China's petrochemical industry and contribute to the economic development of Fujian Province.
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Waterside Capital Corporation Announces New CEO
Waterside Capital Corp., a Small Business Investment Company (SBIC) headquartered in Norfolk, Va, announced today that long-time banker and community leader Lin Earley will become the company's new CEO, effective April 1, 2007.
Earley joined Waterside in August 2006 and served as a vice president and the business development officer. Prior to that he worked in the banking industry for 37 years, where he excelled in client acquisition, strategic planning, commercial lending, capital solutions, and revenue generation. Earley spent the last 10 years of his career as Bank of America's regional president for the Hampton Roads market.
Early replaces Alan Lindauer as CEO. Lindauer was instrumental in creating the company in 1994. Although he is retiring from fulltime work, Lindauer will remain active in the company as its new chairman. He replaces Peter Meredith, who remains on the board of directors. Martin Speroni, the company's research officer, has been promoted to president.
Earley says the leadership change reflects a renewed effort by Waterside to focus on strategic growth, increase the company's outreach to the business community, and become a regional economic catalyst that helps the economy grow by offering investment capital and strategic business advice that helps expand small businesses and create jobs.
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Essex Woodlands Health Ventures Further Expands Global
Investment Team; Steve Wiggins Joins as Operating Partner
Representatives of Essex Woodlands Health Ventures, a venture capital firm solely dedicated to health care investing, announces two new executives are joining the firm, further expanding the firm's investment capabilities. Having raised $600 million in Fund VII in mid 2006, the firm continues to build out its team.
Steve Wiggins Joins as Operating Partner. Steve Wiggins is best known as the founder and CEO of Oxford Health Plan but has built numerous other companies, including HealthMarket, Health Partners, and IntelliClaim. While at Oxford, Wiggins built the company up to $5 billion in revenue which was established as one of the 300 largest corporations in America. Wiggins has also been an active private equity investor on his own and in partnership with private equity funds, typically originating transactions or organizing new businesses. Affiliating with Essex as an Operating Partner, Wiggins will serve as a senior advisor to the firm and also will lead new investments.
Wiggins will base out of Essex Woodlands' New York City office. Wiggins holds a B.A. from Macalester College and an M.B.A. from Harvard Business School.
Dr. Tamara Elias joins Essex Woodlands as Principal. Dr. Elias, who was formerly with McKinsey & Company, a global management consulting firm, advised primarily pharmaceutical and diagnostic companies in strategic, operational and business development areas. Prior to joining McKinsey, Elias was a general surgery resident at Massachusetts General Hospital in Boston and received a national grant during a research fellowship in plastic and reconstructive surgery at New York University. Elias received her undergraduate degree from Yale and her medical degree from Johns Hopkins.
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Sue Siegel Joins MDV with Focus on Life Science Investing
Representatives of MDV-Mohr Davidow Ventures, a Silicon Valley venture capital firm, announced the addition of Sue Siegel, a veteran life sciences executive, as a partner with the firm. She will join MDV's life sciences team and invest in cross-discipline companies developing and commercializing enabling technologies that will improve clinical research and development and transform the practice of medicine. In particular, she will partner with entrepreneurs and companies that offer solutions to modern healthcare challenges: age-onset conditions, lifestyle-induced health trends, consumer-driven wellness preservation, and healthcare economics.
During the past 20+ years Siegel has worked in the life sciences industry where she led businesses that commercialized key enabling technologies in biomedical research and healthcare.
Prior to joining MDV, Siegel was President and Director of Affymetrix, Inc., a company that pioneered GeneChip technology, propelling the expansion of the genomics field and the opportunity for personalized medicine. Formerly, Siegel was at Amersham International (now GE Healthcare) where her last role was President of the Hoefer-Pharmacia Biotech business. Previously, she built her experience in biotechnology and healthcare at E. I. DuPont & Co., Eastman Kodak Co., and Bio-Rad Laboratories.
Siegel is also a member of the board of directors of Pacific Biosciences, an MDV company. She is a member of the Presidents' Circle of the National Academies, serves as an advisor to the Institute of Medicine, and is a board member of The Tech Museum of Innovation, Silicon Valley. She is a member of the Advisory Council of The J. David Gladstone Institutes in San Francisco, a world leading biomedical research organization.
MDV has funded entrepreneurial life sciences teams that bring a blend of backgrounds -- from molecular biology to computer science to physics to chemistry -- and are developing companies that apply a powerful multi-disciplinary approach from inception. The firm is specifically focused on life sciences companies whose products are on track to make it to market inside of three to five years. Siegel joins Bill Ericson, Michael Goldberg, Rowan Chapman, Ph.D., and Vance Vanier, M.D., on the MDV life sciences investing team.
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Dr. Sanuj Ravindran Joins Radius Ventures as Principal
Representatives of Radius Ventures, a health and life sciences focused venture capital firm, announced that Dr. Sanuj K. Ravindran has joined the firm as a Principal.
Prior to joining Radius, Dr. Ravindran was a Director at Burrill & Company, a San Francisco based life sciences venture capital firm. While with Burrill, he played an active role in several investments, including diaDexus, Proventys, Endocyte, Neosil, Cardiokine and Arete.
Ravindran is Board Certified in Internal Medicine and served as a National Cancer Institute Research Fellow at Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center. Dr. Ravindran received a BA with Honors from Northwestern University, an MD from Jefferson Medical College, and an MBA from The Kellogg School of Management, where he was a Rothschild Scholar.
