Styron breaks ground on its new SSBR production line

(Styron) -- Today the newly elected minister of economic affairs Mrs. Prof. Dr. Birgitta Wolff and other dignitaries joined leaders and employees from Styron to celebrate the construction of Styron's new SSBR (Solution Styrene Butadiene Rubber) production line. The groundbreaking ceremony introduced an additional capacity of 50 KT at the production facility in Schkopau, Germany, and will allow Styron to help customers around the world meet the increasing demand for high performance tires.

The new production train will be built alongside existing trains and is expected to be fully operational by Q4 2012. With this capacity expansion, Styron envisions the creation of approximately 30 additional jobs at the Schkopau site. According to Ralf Irmert, business development director, Synthetic Rubber at Styron, the new train will focus on SSBR production, with the capability to produce all existing clear and oil extended Styron grades.

MRC

(DSM) -- Elevance Renewable Sciences, Inc. and Royal DSM N.V. announce they have signed a Letter of Intent for a collaboration to evaluate Elevance's unique monomers for production of specialty bio-based high performance thermoplastic materials, for DSM's engineering plastics portfolio.

Elevance will provide natural monomers produced from plant oils along with its proprietary metathesis technology to enable the production of various polymers. DSM will provide expertise on polymer research, application development and commercialization.

⌠Partnering with Elevance enables DSM to further broaden our portfolio of products that provide improved performance over existing polymer solutions, said Roelof Westerbeek, president of DSM Engineering Plastics. ⌠Together with Elevance we can create new classes of bio-renewable, high-performance materials without compromising cost or quality.

MRC

MOSCOW (MRC) -- The threat of cheap reexported HDPE in terms of low demand and lowered prices for oil made European producers decrease export prices, according to ICIS-MRC Price report.

As a result, in the last week of April some European producers, expecting cheaper reexport volumes of HDPE from China, considerably reduced export prices. To sell their April stocks, producers temporarily reduced export quotations by EUR 50-60/mt.

Contract May price for ethylene in Europe grew by EUR 25/mt. Despite this, last week European producers reduced export prices for May by EUR 15-50/mt. Over the last seven days quotations for oil fell more than by USD 10/brl, while dollar strengthened against euro. All these factors force many market players put on hold buying materials expecting further reduction of prices. Meanwhile Ukrainian companies temporarily suspended HDPE purchases in Europe.

MRC

(PlasticsToday) -- Paperboard and plastics continue to joust for supremacy as packaging materials for electronic devices and small appliances. A recent plastics development for consumer electronics packaging is the new Sconapor N grades of expandable polystyrene (EPS) being marketed by styrenics supplier Styron.

Styron has been producing EPS under the brand name Sconapor since 1996 at its facility in Schkopau, Germany. These EPS beads were initially developed for thermal and acoustic insulation purposes, but the supplier has optimized them for plastics packaging, with the result this new Sconapor N series, with four grades currently available: N-438, N-338, N-238 and ?N-138A EPS. The four grades have different bead sizes that can translate into different packaging foam densities.

These EPS grades are marketed to processors seeking non-flame-retardant EPS for consumer electronics and appliances packaging. The Schkopau facility is especially convenient for those manufacturers of these devices who have established operations in Central and Eastern Europe.

MRC

(Plastemart) -- Enterprise Products Partners L.P. plans to expand its polymer grade propylene (PGP) fractionation facility at the partnership's Mont Belvieu, Texas complex, which will add on an annual basis, approximately 7,500 bpd (500 mln lbs) of incremental PGP production. The expansion is expected to be in service in Q1-2013. When completed, the expansion would increase Enterprise's net capacity to produce PGP at its Mont Belvieu facility by more than 10% from 73,000 bpd (approx 4.9 bln lbs pa) to roughly 80,500 bpd (5.4 bln lbs pa).

To produce PGP, which is approximately 99.5 percent pure propylene, Enterprise fractionates refinery grade propylene (RGP), which is approximately 60 percent to 65 percent propylene, with the remainder being propane and butane. PGP is used in the production of plastic consumer products, coatings, pharmaceuticals, detergents and solvents.

MRC