Mailiao residents demand petrochemical plant act on safety

(Focus Taiwan) -- Residents living near the Formosa Plastics Group's petrochemical complex in central Taiwan voiced anger Friday over the latest fire that broke out at the facility -- the third in a year -- and demanded that the company deal with its safety problems.

A fire broke out at one of the group's petrochemical plants in the Yunlin County complex in Mailiao Township Thursday night. No one was injured, but the blaze smoldered until Friday morning.

The township leaders asked Formosa Plastics to tell them if the latest fire generated pollution, establish an alert system in each of the town's villages, and set up an emergency notification mechanism. The groups also wanted the company to suspend operations to conduct thorough checks of all of the facility's wiring and piping and form a monitoring team on production lines.

The fire occurred less than a year after two similar incidents at the complex last July. In October last year, a fire broke out at a factory operated by a member of the Formosa Plastics Group in Chiayi County in southern Taiwan.

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(Braskem) -- Braskem, the leading thermoplastic resin producer in the Americas and the world's largest biopolymer producer, is a participant in the 2011 United Nations Global Compact Week and the Meeting of Signatories of the Caring for Climate initiative. The Global Compact Week will be held from May 16 to 20 and the Meeting of Signatories will be held on May 17 in Copenhagen, Denmark. This year's annual signatories meeting has the theme Business Contribution to Global Sustainability Ahead of Rio+20, which is the UN Conference of Sustainable Development to be held in Brazil next year.

Braskem became the world's largest producer of biopolymers, which are resins made from renewable raw materials, in 2010, when it began to make polyethylene made from ethanol, advancing its strategy to become the world leader in sustainable chemistry. The green plastic produced by Braskem recently received the highest certification for renewable products from Vincotte, a Belgium certification association that is one of the world's main references in this type of evaluation.

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(Lanxess) -- Lanxess will be exhibiting at the 11th Challenge Bibendum, organized by the Michelin Group, this year on the grounds of the former Berlin-Tempelhof Airport. ⌠This event is considered one of the world's foremost specialist- and discussion forums on issues relating to sustainable mobility and the corresponding technical solutions. As such, it is the ideal setting for us to present our material innovations for the lightweight, low-emissions and safe motor vehicle of the future, explains Dr. Werner Breuers, Member of the Board of Management of Lanxess.

New Lanxess high-performance rubber grades will be showcased that significantly reduce the rolling resistance of tires which can account for roughly one-fifth of a vehicle's total fuel consumption. The topic of lightweight construction concepts based on the high-tech plastics Durethan and Pocan will also be presented. The concepts include new, all-plastic composite technology based on nylon composite sheet and polyamide, which supports the fabrication of very lightweight, but strong vehicle body parts. Also on exhibit will be high-performance elastomers from the Therban range for applications in new engine concepts, and a project for the manufacture of synthetic rubber from renewable raw materials. These and other innovations will also be on display at the company's 80 square meters of stand space in the Technical Exhibition Center.

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(Reuters) -- Japan's Idemitsu Kosan Co said it restarted the naphtha cracker at its Chiba plant, east of Tokyo, on Thursday after scheduled maintenance. The 374 KTa cracker, which had been shut since March 27, began making products that reached specified standards on Thursday, a spokeswoman said. The company has no plans to shut its 623 Kta naphtha cracker at Tokuyama plant this year.

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(Plastemart) -- Technip has been awarded by BASF an Engineering Partner Umbrella Service Contract for chemical and petrochemical projects. The scope of work encompasses various kinds of services from studies, basic & detail engineering up to project implementation services. Both companies are contemplating a long-term partnership which will provide BASF access to the extensive engineering resources of Technip for its capital investments notably in Europe, but also in other regions.

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