Mitsubishi Chemical Corp restarts naphtha cracker at Kashima

(Plastemart) -- As scheduled, Mitsubishi Chemical Corp has restarted the 375 KTa No.1 naphtha cracker at its Kashima plant, as per Reuters. The cracker had been shut after the Kashima complex was damaged in a magnitude 9.0 earthquake on March 11. The 453 KTa No.2 cracker at the facility resumed operations last month.

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(Plastemart) -- Samsung Engineering has been awarded a contract worth USD 229 mln for a high-density polyethylene plant (HDPE) by OPaL (ONGC Petro Additions Ltd.), a subsidiary of ONGC (Oil & Natural Gas Corporation Ltd).

The plant will be built in the special economic zone of Dahej, Gujarat, to produce 340,000 tpa of high-density polyethylene (HDPE). Samsung Engineering was initially notified in May that it would handle the engineering, procurement, construction, commissioning work on a lump-sum turn-key basis with mechanical completion set for August 2013.

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(Plastics Today) -- As has been widely reported, Danone has switched from polystyrene to polylactic acid, a plastic based on plant starch, for its Activia yogurt cups in Germany. The change was made for packs of 4x115g and 8x115g yogurt. According to a recent study funded by the trade association European Bioplastics, global bioplastics production capacity will more than double from 2010 to 2015, with capacity forecast to exceed 1 million tonnes this year.

PlasticsToday sat down with Steve Davies, marketing manager at NatureWorks, which supplies the PLA used in the Danone yogurt packaging, to talk about the yogurt project and also about his company's ongoing developments. As Davies pointed out, this was not Danone's first use of PLA in yogurt packaging. Stonyfield Farm last year switched from polystyrene to PLA; that dairy is owned 85% by Danone.

According to NatureWorks and Danone, the switch to PLA from polystyrene will improve the Activia packaging's carbon footprint by 25% and use 43% less fossil resources compared to the previous packaging, based on a life cycle assessment (LCA) study conducted by the Heidelberg, Germany-based LCA Institute for Energy and Environmental Research (IFEU).

According to Davies, NatureWorks largest markets currently are foodservice wares, flexible films and non-wovens. The fastest growing end-use applications for the company's Ingeo-brand of PLA are in durable goods and non-wovens. Only about 1% of the supplier's output is sold for blowmolding of bottles.

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(BASF) -- BASF Color Solutions increases prices globally for all masterbatches by minimum 5%. New prices are effective for deliveries starting 1st of July, 2011, or as contracts allow. These price increases are necessary to cover further significant increase in raw material cost seen for pigments and light stabilizers, plasticizers and polymers as well as increases in other costs like energy and labor costs.


The product range of BASF's Pigments & Resins business unit includes pigments, effect pigments, pigment preparations and dyes, resins, light stabilizers, photoinitiators and additives as well as specific masterbatches in Europe.

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(Clariant) -- The masterbatches business unit of Clariant, a leading masterbatches player globally, announces global price increases for most of its products. "During the past months, the price development for our main raw materials, as well as other conversion costs, has reached a level which we cannot absorb ourselves anymore, despite our ongoing efforts to offset these costs with internal actions, such as in particular our Operational and Commercial Excellence program. Also to finance future investments to our supply chain in order to secure raw material availability, we have no alternative but to increase prices," comments Hans Bohnen, Head of Clariant`s Masterbatches Business Unit.

The price increases will become effective immediately or as contracts allow. Clariant customers will be contacted individually regarding the specifics of the price increase as they apply to their products and regions.

MRC