SIBUR completes rerouting exports for all product groups - CEO

MOSCOW. Dec 28 (Interfax) - SIBUR has successfully rerouted sales of products that European customers have refused, the Russian petrochemical group's CEO, Mikhail Karisalov said in an interview with TV channel Rossiya 24.

"Now the main work is done. We have rerouted sales of all our product groups and, of course, Asia is the key market in terms of exports. [...] Of course, our partnership with our shareholder, Sinopec, is helping us and we have managed to reroute fairly large amounts to China. In terms of challenges - longer and more complicated logistics - we have now dealt with this," Karisalov said.

He said SIBUR also has other export markets. "Vietnam, [...] Africa, South America - this is where SIBUR's products make their way to for sure already in fairly large amounts." Karisalov said.

He said European markets accounted for a little more than 10% of all SIBUR exports and about a third of the company's exports of base polymers.

"But we never worked only for one market in terms of exports. We also had a presence on markets in the Asia-Pacific region and then tried the first such 'exotic' markets - Indochina, we tried getting to Africa, but of course the economics did not always, say, support this arbitrage. Nonetheless, practices and even a number of partnerships [were] developed, in some places major traders, in others local processors," Karisalov said.