Investments into moulding equipment continue in Russia

MOSCOW (MRC) - Total investments into moulding in Russia in 2009 formed about USD 69 mln, 2.5 times less than in 2008 - according to MRC Annual reports.

Investments into moulding equipment form over quarter of all the investments into polymers production. The biggest ones are into package production equipment - over 19 mln USD. Investments into car parts production equipment went down 2 times (10.6 mln USD) and electronics (9.5 mln USD).

Sites of electronics production giants such as Samsung Electronics, LG, BSH Bosch und Siemens remained on Russian territory and continued to invest in 2009 despite the crisis.Samsung Electronics Rus extends capacities in Kaluga, investing into Engel, Han Kook System and Seahn system equipment. ⌠BSC Bytovaya Technica Ltd increased refrigerator production capacities, installing Krauss Maffei equipment.

Autoframos plant and Krysta group (Syzran) and Foresia Technoplast Automotiv group are among the main investors. Certainly, reviving of material demand is going to be observed in this sector soon, as world companies such as Opel, PSA Peugeot Citroen and Mitsubishi Motors (PSMA Rus Ltd. Keep up developing their projects in Russia.

MRC

More detailed analysis of events in Russian polymers market in 2009 and forecasts of the market development in 2010 is presented in MRC Annual reports.

April 9 (prw) -- Hungarian electronic component moulder Videoton Holding, which recently launched a manufacturing plant in the Ukraine, is now planning to make an acquisition in the former CIS country.

Last year, the Szekesfehervar, Hungary-based group joined forces with the Russian specialist measuring and production testing devices and equipment maker JSC Tochpribor to launch a 3,200 m2 automotive cable parts plant in Mukachevo. Due to employ 600 at the end of 2009, it is mainly serving auto giant Volkswagen.

The group said a year ago that Videoton Ukraine was due to expand high volume, labour-intensive assembly work but would carry out plastics component injection moulding and sheet metal processing as well.

Videoton, which is also seeking to acquire other operations elsewhere in coming months, has given no details of a likely target business in Ukraine. But it has earmarked more than ┬11m for investments overall for 2010, marginally higher than the figure in 2009.

Meanwhile, Videoton is enjoying improved business this year after a slowdown last year. The group saw its overall sales revenue fall by 12% during 2009, but is now projecting a growth in its turnover during 2010 of between 5% and 10%, Hungary's MTI news agency quoted Videoton's ceo Otto Sinko.

Investments this year have included finite element analysis software (Moldex3D) for computer simulation of injection moulding, acquired jointly by tool manufacturing offshoot VT Precision, VT Plastic and VT Elektro-Plast.

Videoton group, which also manufactures in Bulgaria and Hungary, has around 20 subsidiary companies and employs 8,000.

MRC

April 9 (chemie.de) -- INEOS NOVA announced that prices for Polystyrene products in Europe have been revised up further, in response to latest feedstock increases confirmed for April.

Prices for GPPS (General Purpose Polystyrene) will increase +┬ 110 Euro per/tonne and for HIPS (High Impact Polystyrene) by +┬130 per/tonne in Europe, effective April 1st, 2010.

MRC MRC Reference

Ineos is a petrochemical group.
In Russia Ineos's interests are represented by Ineos Polyolefins and IneosChlorVinyls.

The share in the Russian market in 2008:
PVC - 4.5%;

polyethylene - 1.9%
(HDPE - 2.8%, LDPE - 1.2%);
polypropylene - 1.4%
(PP-random - 22.1%, PP-impact - 2.0%);
polystyrene - 0.9%.

Imports by polymers processing technologies:
profile extrusion;
pipe extrusion;
film extrusion;
injection molding.

April 8 (adsalecprj) -- The Dow Chemical Company announced in late March the newest addition to the NORDEL polymer family.

NORDEL 4785HM Hydrocarbon Rubber is the successor to the gas-phase grades that were the market-leading products for dense extrusion applications. NORDEL 4785HM is a high ethylene, high molecular weight polymer designed for exceptional cost performance in elastomer parts.

Dow used the technology behind NORDEL IP Hydrocarbon Rubber to design NORDEL 4785HM to have filler acceptance, cure rate and green strength, while retaining fast mixing and good low temperature properties. Designed primarily for automotive dense profiles, NORDEL 4785HM can also be used in hoses, building profiles, roofing, and molded parts. In all applications, filler and oil levels can be increased compared to 60-70 Mooney viscosity polymers for greater cost efficiency.

Some of the highlights of the new product include small pellets that mix faster than bales to save money in mixing and increase the productivity of the mixing room, a tailored molecular weight distribution to give very rapid cure, extrusion speeds and good shape retention especially in highly-filled compounds.

MRC

MRC Reference

Share in the Russian market, 2008:

polyethylene - 2.5% (including LLDPE - 33.1%);

polypropylene - 0.8% (including PP-impact - 1.1%);

polystyrene - 2.6%.

Annual sales growth in Russia, recent 5 years:

polyethylene - 55%;

polypropylene - 28%;

polystyrene - 2%.

Imports by processing technologies:

pipe extrusion;

film extrusion;

sheet extrusion;

foaming.

April 8 (prw) -- Leading Russian oil group Lukoil has put back the planned launch of a major ┬2.6bn gas-chemicals expansion project in southern Russia to 2016 or 2017. The lingering global economic recession played a significant role in the group's decision to postpone completion of the Caspian gas-chemical complex and the expansion of its existing Budyennovsk chemical cracker. The complex, originally set to go on stream this year, was already postponed until 2013.

Lukoil planned the complex in Budyennovsk with a 15 billion m3/year gas processing capacity after discovering six important oil and gas fields in the Caspian Sea. The new chemical complex will source the Caspian natural gas for production at its new 600,000 tpa PE plant. Lukoil is not alone in reassessing the timing of its strategic projects. Another Russian petrochemicals player, Salavatnefteorgsintez, based in the Russian semi-autonomous republic of Bashkortostan, has again postponed its plan to build a 120,000 tpa high density polyethylene (HDPE) plant, originally scheduled for 2006.

The company had hoped to launch the new polyethylene operation in Salavat by last year but it missed the latest deadline at the end of 2009. But Russia's leading petrochemicals producer Sibur Holding is still forging ahead with its several polymer projects. Its Tobolsk-Polymer scheme, including the construction of 510,000 tpa propylene and 500,000 tpa polypropylene plants in Tobolsk, Tyumen state, is due on stream in 2012.

Meanwhile, Sibur has been reticent to confirm the exact launch timing of Russia's first worldscale vinyl complex in Kstovo in the Nizhny Novgorod region. Including a 330,000 tpa PVC plant, the Rusvinyl complex - a joint venture project between Sibur, Solvay group offshoot SolVin and BASF - was set for start up this spring. Despite a slowdown in Russian national growth, demand for polymers is still growing, albeit slowly and seems set to remain more buoyant than for chemicals generally through to 2012, Russia's Economic Development Ministry has said.

MRC