Berry Plastics added another name to its long string of acquisitions

(Plastics Today) -- Plastics packaging processor Berry Plastics with its most recent purchase it adds another name to its long string of acquisitions. Berry has acquired the beverage and specialty closures business of Rexam PLC, for USD 360m in cash.

Berry's acquisition string began in 1988 with the purchase of aerosol closure molder Gilbert Plastics. The purchases since then include Venture Packaging, the dairy closures product line of Clayton Corp., Poly-Seal Corp., Alcoa Flexible Packaging, Captive Plastics and more; a complete list is at the processor's website. In 2006, the investment groups, Apollo Management and Graham Partners Inc., purchased Berry Plastics from Jack Berry Sr.

The purchase of Rexam's closures business is expected to close in Q3 2011 and is conditional on regulatory approvals. The new Berry business employs about 1500 and is focused on the North American market. Rexam acquired the closures business as part of its acquisition of Owens-Illinois's plastics business in 2007. Rexam's closure business performs both compression and injection molding.

MRC

(Plastemart) -- SKC announced that it will set up production capacity of 600,000 tons of propylene oxide (PO) by expanding its hydrogen peroxide propylene oxide (HPPO) plant.

SKC plans to double production capacity of the HPPO plant from the current 100 KT to 200 KT by 2013 after completing the construction of an additional PO production capacity of 30 KT by H1-2012.

MRC

(ICIS) -- US cellulosic ethanol usage could fall significantly in 2012 based on a government proposal on Tuesday to cut the amount of that type of biofuel refiners would be required to blend in gasoline.

The mandate for US cellulosic ethanol consumption in 2012 would be cut to 3.45m-12.90m gal (13.06m-48.83m litres), from a previous 500m gal target, under a proposal by the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA).

The EPA cited a study of "market availability" as the reason behind the reduction, indicating that the US continues to a lack cellulosic ethanol production in the scale needed to meet its targets.

Despite the cut on the cellulosic side, the EPA proposed keeping the overall US target for renewable fuels usage in 2012 steady at 15.2bn gal, an increase of 9.4% from 13.9bn gal in 2011.

For 2013, the government proposed increasing the use of biomass-based diesel by 28% from 2012 to 1.28bn gal.

MRC

(ICIS) -- Borealis will permanently shut its 20 KTa melamine low-pressure plant at Linz in Austria on 27 June, the Austria-based polyolefins maker said on Wednesday. The company earlier decommissioned a 10 KTa melamine low-pressure plant at the Linz site in January last year, Borealis said in a statement. The decision to decommission the plants was made as investments in melamine low-pressure plants ⌠do not pay off in Europe, the statement said.

Major customers will be switching their production to high-pressure melamine, Borealis said, without elaborating further. Customers who can only use low-pressure melamine will continue to be supplied through the 20 KTa plant in the meantime, it added.

MRC

(ICIS) -- Taiwan's Nan Ya Plastics may be forced to enter the monoethylene glycol (MEG) spot market if the company runs out of inventories to supply to its domestic contract customers, a company spokesperson said on Wednesday. ⌠Once we feel it is necessary, we may enter the spot market. It is possible, said David Tsou from the investor relations department of Nan Ya Plastics.

The move is likely to have an impact on MEG prices in Asia, which are already on the rise after the Yunlin county government ordered Nan Ya Plastics to shut its MEG plants for safety checks from 1 June following a fire at Formosa group's Mailiao petrochemical complex on 12 May.

The company's shutdown at its MEG plants caused Asia's MEG spot prices to rise to USD 1.245-1.255/tonne (EUR 859-866/tonne) CFR (cost & freight) China Main Port (CMP) early on 22 June, which is a steep increase of USD 130-135/tonne or 12% from its prices in May.

Nan Ya Plastics is part of the Formosa group, Taiwan's largest petrochemical player. The company's plants can produce 1.9m tonnes/year of MEG, which account for 10% of Asia's total MEG capacity.

MRC