PolyOne to open a new polymer distribution warehouse and sales facility

(Plastics Today) -- PolyOne will open a new polymer distribution warehouse and sales facility focused on serving healthcare customers in Shanghai on July 1 - the first PolyOne Distribution unit outside the U.S. Announced at MD&M East, PolyOne officials said the new center, which will be collocated with an existing PolyOne color and engineering materials manufacturing and sales facility, will shorten lead times for its customers in China to days, not weeks.


Michael L. Rademacher, president PolyOne Distribution, told PlasticsToday that his company made the move to follow its customers within the medical segment. "[PolyOne] has a significant presence in the distribution segment of the healthcare market here in the U.S.," Rademacher said, "and many of our customers here have opened up, or will be opening up, operations in China, and they really wanted to get us engaged and involved over there".


PolyOne's existing 90,000-sq-ft facility is located in the Waigaoqiao Free Trade Zone. Based in the northeast of Pudong New Area, the free-trade zone, which will allow PolyOne to import materials for its customers duty free, is adjacent to the mouth of Yangtze River and about 20 km from downtown Shanghai. PolyOne plans to broaden its distribution service to customers in other industries over the next twelve months.


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Pakistan to build the country's first aromatics facility

(ICIS) -- Byco Oil Pakistan Ltd (BOPL) is building the country's first aromatics facility, which is expected to come on line by the middle of 2013, a senior company executive said on Thursday. The facility will produce about 100 KTa of benzene, 92 KTa of paraxylene (PX), 80 KTa of isomer-grade mixed xylene (MX) and 50 KTa of orthoxylene (OX), said Mohammad Wasi Khan, president of chemical manufacturing at BOPL.


The plant will be located at the same site in the Hubco coastal area of the Arabian Sea, which is about 50 km from Karachi, where Byco operates a 35.000 bbl/day refinery.


BOPL is also building a 120.000 bbl/day refinery at the same site and expects to bring it on line in the fourth quarter of 2011, Khan said.


The new refinery will provide the naphtha feedstock needed for its aromatics facility.


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New PET plants for SKC and M&G

(Plastics Today) -- Processors of very different applications are to be served by these two recently announced capacity expansions. M&G's announcement, made last month, involves construction of a massive plant in the U.S. to supply bottle-grade PET for packaging, whereas the SKC project in Korea will increase its capacity of premium optical-grade PET, which is primarily used in the production of high-end films for consumer electronics.


This week plastics supplier SKC Co. Ltd. (Seoul) announced it had contracted plant engineering firm Uhde Inventa-Fischer to build a new plant for the production of optical film-grade PET at SKC's operation in Jincheon, Korea. The plant will have two lines with production capacities respectively of 144 and 54 KTa. The commissioning of both is scheduled for the second quarter of 2012.


M&G Group (Tortona, Italy) is building a 100 KTa PET plant in the U.S., with the new plant expected to be online by late 2012 or early 2013, with the PET plant co-located with one of a new purified terephthalic acid (PTA) plant, also run by M&G. The new plants will be located in Texas, Mississippi or Louisiana, with M&G expected to announce the location by the end of this month.


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U.S. mold suppliers for Toyota's operations to provide the best molds

(Plastics Today) -- Being a supplier to Toyota is a coveted position, and the Japanese car company is dedicated to helping ensure that its U.S. mold suppliers for the company's U.S. manufacturing operations provide the best molds at a globally competitive price.


Toyota Motor Engineering & Manufacturing North America Inc. has a better way to deal with tool and mold suppliers. Recently PlasticsToday was invited to attend a Tooling and Mold Suppliers training seminar that helps these suppliers understand the Toyota way, and what they need to do to be a good supplier to Toyota and its Tier Ones.


Through its Purchasing Tooling Cost Analysis Group (PTCAG), Toyota has determined the cost of molds based on the types of molds and the various components used, in all regions around the world. The purpose of this is to make sure that the company is paying the "right" price for the mold, not necessarily the "cheapest" price or the "highest" price.


Because Toyota has all of the cost benchmarks in place, the company knows what the appropriate price should be for molds coming from various regions of the world. For example, the labor rate Toyota uses for tool builders in the U.S. is USD 60 an hour, which is much higher than for a mold coming from China.


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Italy's SO.F.TER to expand offerings for the automotive industry

(Plastics Today) -- With its acquisition, long in the works, Italy's SO.F.TER grows in size, expands its offerings for the automotive industry, particularly in Germany, and also gains a better position for the supply of fiber reinforced compounds.


PGroup, based in Ferrara, Italy, there compounds polypropylene, PBT and polyamide; it also has a sales office in Stuttgart, Germany. The compounder was under court control after its bankruptcy, and SO.F.TER (Forli, Italy), had "leased" it from April 2010 and was co-managing the business during it bankruptcy. Following court approval, SO.F.TER has formally acquired PGroup.


"The acquisition of PGroup represents a significant step forward in our growth strategy and allows us to rank among the top three independent compounders in Europe in terms of volumes, with 120,000 tons' projected sales for 2011," said Stefano Zocca, managing director of SO.F.TER, in a company release. "The first and most important result of this operation is a remarkable increase of the business with Germany, where the SOF.TER. Group strengthened its presence, particularly in the automotive industry. Moreover, the development of synergies in the production and commercial areas has just started and we expect to achieve important results in the near future."


The new owner does plant to make changes to the Forli and Ferrara plants, so that each site will be responsible for specific product lines; it also plans to optimize its supply chain.


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