Taiwanese supplier to cease manufacturing foam grades

(Plastics Today) -- The booming solar encapsulant film market has prompted one Taiwanese supplier to cease manufacturing foam grades for footwear altogether and instead focus 1500 tonnes/month of its capacity on this application alone. The supplier in question, USI Corp. (Taipei) has now outsourced footwear grade production to sister company Asia Polymer Corp. (Taipei).

Solar grade prices have peaked at USD 3300 per tonne, according to Kevin Huang, Deputy Marketing Manager at USI. Foam grades are reportedly currently pegged at USD 2850-2900 per tonne CIF Ningbo, while hot melt grades have reached USD 3250.

Huang does feel the market for EVA sheet may have peaked, however, because sheet converters have over-invested in extrusion capacity in Japan, China and the U.S. just as some countries are starting to withdraw subsidies for solar panel insulation and a large inventory of unsold solar panels starts tp build.


MRC

(Bloomberg) -- Oil traded near a two-week high in New York on signs of increased U.S. fuel demand after a government report showed inventories of diesel and heating oil fell in the world's biggest crude-consuming nation.

Futures reached their highest since May 11 today after the Energy Department said yesterday that U.S. distillate supplies declined 2.04 million barrels to 141.1 million last week, the lowest since April 2009. Fuel demand climbed 2.2 percent. Oil may rise to USD 106 a barrel in coming weeks as prices mirror an early-May pullback in 2010 that launched a rally in the rest of that year, Societe Generale SA said.

Crude for July delivery on the New York Mercantile Exchange was at USD 101.22 a barrel at 9:14 a.m. London time, down 10 cents, after gaining as much as 58 cents to USD 101.90. Brent crude for July settlement was at USD 114.73 a barrel, down 23 cents, on the ICE Futures Europe exchange in London. The contract yesterday climbed USD 2.40, or 2.1 percent, to USD 114.93, the highest settlement since May 10.

MRC

(Arabian Oil and Gas) -- UOP, a Honeywell company, announced that its technology has been selected for a new transportation fuel refinery to be built in Iraq.

The State Company for Oil Projects (SCOP), under the Ministry of Oil for Iraq, has selected Honeywell's UOP to provide key technologies to process 300,000 barrels per day (bpd) of domestic crude oil into gasoline and diesel fuel at the new facility in Nassiriya, Iraq.

Honeywell's UOP previously received awards in 2010 from South Refineries Company and North Refineries Company for new refineries in Maissan and Kirkuk, Iraq, each rated at 150,000 bpd.

⌠We are pleased to be working with the SCOP again as Iraq focuses on doubling its oil refining capacity, said Rajeev Gautam, president and CEO of UOP. ⌠The high yields delivered by our technologies combined with our methodology for process unit integration and optimization will enable SCOP to produce the maximum yields of high-quality gasoline and diesel product while also maximizing the economic value of the project.

MRC

(Arabian Oil and Gas) -- The Saudi Arabian Mining Company Ma'aden has successfully loaded and unloaded a trial shipment of phosphate concentrate. The company said that the phosphate shipment was transported from the plant of the phosphate concentrate in Al Jalamid mine site in the north of the Kingdom to Ras Az Zawr through railway transportation, after the completion of the 980Km railway by the Saudi Railways Company.

Ma'aden Phosphate Company, a joint venture between Ma'aden and SABIC, will produce approximately 2.92 million t/y of granular DAP, plus approximately 440 KTa of excess ammonia for export to world markets. It is also anticipated that the Phosphate Project will generate approximately 160 KTa of excess phosphoric acid for sales to the domestic market.

MRC

(Lukoil) -- Lukoil published consolidated US GAAP financial statements for the first quarter of 2011. The Company's net income was USD 3.517 million in the first quarter of 2011, which is 71.3% higher y-o-y. EBITDA was USD 5.343 million, which is 43.3% higher y-o-y. Sales revenues were USD 29.626 million (+23.9% y-o-y). Positive dynamic of our financial results was mainly due to a sharp increase in hydrocarbon prices in the first quarter of 2011 compared to the respective period of 2010.

MRC