BASF bid for Cognis makes sense if price is right

(Dow Jones)--Market speculation was rising Monday that Germany-based BASF SE (BAS.XE) will make a bid for German specialty chemicals company Cognis GmbH, a combination that analysts say makes sense.

Two people familiar with the matter told Dow Jones Newswires Friday that BASF has resumed talks to acquire Cognis, which is owned by Goldman Sachs Group Inc. (GS) and private equity fund Permira Advisors Ltd. They said Cognis' owners are also in early-stage talks with other potential bidders, but that none of the interested parties is expected to make immediate bids.

MRCMRC Reference

BASF. The share in the Russian market in 2008:
PS - 9.1% (GPPS - 5.9%, ABS - 11.4%, EPS - 10.6%).

Annual sales growth in Russia over the 5 years:
PS - 15%.

Imports by polymers processing technologies:
foaming;
injection molding.

(Plastics News) -- Dow Chemical Co. has donated 600,000 pounds of its Continuum high density polyethylene to produce WaterBrick International Inc.'s plastic containers that will be used to transport clean water to areas of Haiti, and potentially also be used to build more than 400 individual structures. Midland-based Dow and its employees have made other donations in the wake of the January earthquake that killed more than 200,000 and left an estimated 1 million people without homes.

WaterBrick, an Orlando, Fla.-based company, is out to help provide water and the material for shelter with its blow molded containers. The HDPE bottles will be filled with clean water and distributed in Haiti, the company said in an April 8 news release. After they're empty, the bottles are designed so they can be filled with dirt, interlinked and stacked like concrete blocks to create homes, schools and other buildings.

WaterBrick estimates that Dow's donated resin will make more than 250,000 containers ≈ enough to build 460 12-foot-by-12-foot structures or 370 20-foot-by-20-foot buildings.

MRCMRC 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.

(plastemart) -- Saudi Kayan Petrochemicals Company plans to launch operations at its first unit - an ethylene cracker, at Jubail petrochemicals complex in the second half of 2010. The others from the 16 petrochemical plants will be launched steadily through 2011-12.

MRC

(Plastics Today) -- Bulgaria's leading oriented polypropylene film converter, Plastchim-T, has more than doubled its output and added to its value proposition with the installation and recent start-up of its second BOPP film line. Plastchim-T (Aksakovo) added a 6.6m-wide line from Bruckner (Siegsdorf, Germany) to the 4.2m line from the company that it has been running since 2004.

Output from the new line is more than 400m of bioriented PP (BOPP) film per minute, for an annual output of about 18,000 tons. The line includes a twin-screw extrusion system and direct drives as well as Bruckner's patented LIWEB linear-motor edge guide system, said to help ensure higher line uptime, and the LIWIND-system for high-speed film winding.

According to Bruckner, the new BOPP line is the most energy efficient one in Europe. On its 4.2m-wide line, Plastchim-T is processing plain, coex, and metalizable film. The new line gives it the ability to also convert white opaque and pearlized films.

MRC

(OfficialWire) -- The Qatari petrochemicals industry continues its inexorable rise to becoming a major supplier to the world market. But BMI's latest Qatar Petrochemicals Report warns that the global economic downturn has delayed some major projects by up to two years.

Qatar's policy of economic diversification has led to a surge in investment in projects for the export of petrochemicals. In 2009, Qatar had ethylene capacity of 2.6mn tonnes per annum (tpa) feeding downstream units that included 400,000tpa low-density polyethylene (LDPE) and 450,000tpa high density polyethylene (HDPE). By 2015, it should have ramped up capacities with olefins capacities including 6.25mn tpa ethylene and 900,000tpa propylene, feeding downstream units providing 1.6mn of polyethylene (PE) capacity, 700,000tpa of polypropylene (PP) and 220,000tpa of polystyrene (PS). Qatar will represent 30% of the increase in the GCC's total cracker capacity between 2009 and 2015.

Notably, Qatar Petroleum's subsidiary Qatar Intermediate Industries Holdings and South Korea's Honam Petrochemical announced that their 70:30 US$2.6bn petrochemical joint venture (JV) planned for Mesaieed would be delayed from its original date of 2011 to 2013, leaving many wondering whether it would ever be built. In July 2009, the partners indicated that they would not only revive the project but also enlarge it, adding a 700,000tpa EG plant and increasing the capacity of the mixed xylenes unit from the original 120,000tpa to 600,000tpa. Planned ethylene capacity was also raised from the original 900,000tpa to 1.05mn tpa. Other capacities will follow the original plan, including 700,000tpa PP, 600,000tpa styrene and 220,000tpa PS. BMI forecasts that the QP-Honam JV will probably come onstream in 2014.

Qatar remains in second place in the petrochemicals rankings for Middle East and Africa with 62.7 points, down 1.5 points since the previous quarter due to delays in capacity expansion. This puts it 4.1 points ahead of Kuwait and 11.6 points behind Saudi Arabia.

MRC