Ineos offers stake in Grangemouth plant for sale

April 12 (plastemart) -- In a bid to alleviate its debts, chemicals giant Ineos is considering sale of a stake in the Grangemouth petrochemical facility. Ineos had purchased the Grangemouth plant from BP in 2005. It is located in Scotland, and processes about 200,000 bpd of crude oil. Grangemouth is a moderately complex refinery equipped with both hydrocracking and catalytic cracking systems, giving it flexibility to produce gasoline and middle distillates, such as diesel, according to market demand. The plant is connected to the North Sea Forties pipeline, which delivers about 650,000-700,000 bpd of crude oil, roughly half of the UK's daily production. Morgan Stanley has a deal with Ineos for product marketing and some crude oil purchase. The news comes at a time when many European oil and chemical companies have been looking to sell domestic refineries as demand for fuels and petrochemical products has fallen more sharply in Europe than in most other parts of the world, hitting profit margins.

MRCMRC 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 9 (prw) -- Sabic has signed an agreement with Celanese for the construction of a 50,000 ton polyacetal (POM) production facility at the National Methanol complex in Jubail Industrial City, Saudi Arabia. The engineering and construction of the facility is expected to begin by 2011.
According to the company, the new facility will boost Sabic's position in the performance chemicals industry as an important part of its 2020 strategic plan. It will also provides wider prospects for the Saudi national downstream industries to enter automotive and other advanced industries.

MRC

MRC Reference

Sabic. The share in the Russian market in 2008:
PE - 0.2%;
PP - 0.4%;
PS - 0.2%.

Annual sales growth in Russia over the last 5 years:
PE - 33%;
PP - 62%.

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.