Swedish Autoliv to investing at its production facility in Brazil

(Plastics Today) -- Leading automotive safety systems supplier Autoliv Inc. (Stockholm, Sweden) is investing USD 9 million at its production facility in Taubate near Sao Paulo in Brazil to double its steering wheel molding and assembly capacity to more than one million units annually. This will consolidate its position as leading supplier in the region.


This capacity increase positions Autoliv to take advantage of the expected 25% increase of light vehicle demand in Brazil over the next three years. In addition, a Brazilian law mandating 100% adoption of frontal airbags in light vehicles will be phased in through 2014.


Autoliv began steering wheel operations at the existing Taubate plant 12 years ago. The plant currently has 77 employees, and expects to increase to nearly 100 employees when the plant reaches full capacity.

MRC

Tata Steel and Jindal Steel & Power to invest in coal-to-liquid projects in Orissa

(Plastemart) -- Jindal Synfuels limited (JSFL), a JSPL group company plans to set up a CTL (Coal to Liquid) plant with a capacity of 80.000 bpd, while Tata Steel in joint venture with South Africa based Sasol Synfuels (Pty) Ltd will set up a 3.6 mln tpa Coal to Liquid (CTL) plant in Orissa. An investment outlay of Rs 90.000 crore is expected towards these two plants, scheduled to come up by 2016. These projects will utilize the huge inferior coal deposits found in India to produce ultra clean liquid fuels like diesel and naphtha.


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Haldia Petrochemicals started talks on de-notifying as an oil compan

(Plastemart) -- Haldia Petrochemicals, a joint venture of The Chattterjee Group (TCG) and West Bengal government, has started talks with the state government on de-notifying HPL as an oil company, which has resulted in an annual loss of Rs 300 crore since 2006. The company is also lobbying with the Union government for zero duty on naphtha imports, while also waiting for the Supreme Court (SC) verdict on the ownership issue, as per Financial Express.


HPL Managing Director Partha S Bhattacharyya said HPL under the West Bengal incentive scheme of 1996 was supposed to get tax exemption accumulating up to R6.000 crore or for a period of 12 years, whichever was earlier. But the government in 2006 withdrew the sales tax exemption on motor spirit (MS) issuing a sales tax notification, that HPL was treated as an oil company since it was producing MS oil, which was a petroleum product and not petrochemical product. But HPL did not sell MS oil to the open market and supplied it only to oil companies, which were sales tax negative. Therefore, an additional burden of Rs 300 crore came on it. The Centre in 2008 imposed 5% duty on naphtha imports, while continuing with the 5% duty on the exports of naphtha products. This brought down the duty differentiation to zero ultimately squeezing HPL's margins.


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SABIC signed a technology agreement with Montefibre

(SABIC) -- Saudi Basic Industries Corporation (SABIC) signed a technology agreement with Montefibre S.p.A (Montefibre) granting SABIC and its affiliates an extensive international licence on carbon fiber technology developed by Montefibre. SABIC will first use the technology for a new carbon fiber plant to be built in Saudi Arabia. This plant demonstrates how SABIC continues to add innovative new specialty products to its offering. It will enable SABIC to serve the growing demand for carbon fiber and composites in such fast-growing markets as alternative energy, transportation and infrastructure.


SABIC and Montefibre also signed a Memorandum of Understanding for the companies to study the feasibility of a new carbon fiber production plant in Spain to be integrated into Montefibre's existing acrylic fiber production site≈and thus allowing SABIC to accelerate product development and material qualification activities with customers and end-users.


Once complete, the carbon fiber project is expected to establish a domestic supply of more than 3.000 metric tons of industrial grade carbon fiber to serve emerging local markets in the Middle East as well as international markets.


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Demand for styrene faces little risk from its designation as a possible carcinogen

(ICIS) -- Demand for styrene faces little risk from its new designation in the US as a possible carcinogen, an analyst said on Wednesday. The Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) listed styrene as a so-called anticipated carcinogen in its 12th Report on Carcinogens (RoC). The chemical industry vowed to challenge the new designation.


Regardless, the new designation will likely have muted effect, according to a research note by Laurence Alexander, an analyst at Jefferies & Co.


Already, many North American customers have replaced polystyrene (PS) with other plastics - because of pricing, properties and environmental concerns, he said. For the most part, customers who could switch plastics have already done so, Alexander said.


Still, styrene-based products are still used in the food industry - particularly as insulation, he said. Alexander singled out Omnova Solutions and LyondellBasell as the companies facing risk from the new styrene designation.


Omnova, though, produces styrene butadiene rubber (SBR) that is used as carpet backing and paper coatings - far removed from food services. Moreover, SBR does not have any substitutes that perform as well, he said. As such, Omnova will unlikely see any significant drop in demand.


LyondellBasell also faces little risk - even though it produces 21% of North America's styrene, Alexander said. LyondellBasell produces styrene as a byproduct of its much more lucrative propylene oxide (PO), Alexander said. As such, PO dynamics typically overshadow those for styrene.


MRC