Formosa Plastics to invest in pipeline improvement

(Plastemart) -- Formosa Plastics Group will invest about USD 413 mln to improve pipelines at a major oil refinery amid fresh safety concerns after recent blazes. The group plans to work on 1,063 pipelines totaling 1,266 kilometres (786 miles) at its affiliate Formosa Petrochemical Corp.'s oil refining unit, as per Commercial Times.

The project is expected to be completed in mid-2014. The economic ministry has demanded of Formosa to speed up replacing old pipelines after the latest blaze was reported this week -- the sixth since last year. The ministry has reportedly halted the group's recent China-bound investment applications in a bid to pressure it to enhance safety measures.

MRC

(Plastemart) -- Japan's Mitsui Chemicals plans to restart a 553 KTa naphtha cracker at its Ichihara plant in Chiba, after a turnaround, as per Reuters. The cracker was shut on July 1 and was originally due to resume on July 27, but the restart was delayed by two days.

MRC

(ICIS) -- Braskem's purchase of Dow Chemical's global polypropylene (PP) business could bring more discipline to the US market, but it will not solve the fundamental problem of feedstock shortness, market sources said on Thursday.

The purchase, announced on Wednesday, includes two PP plants in the US and two in Germany, with a total capacity of more than 1m tonnes/year.

By acquiring the two Texas plants, one in Freeport and one in Seadrift, Brazil-based Braskem will increase its PP capacity in the US by 50% to 1.4m tonnes/year, making the company the leading PP producer in North America, the company said.

But there are still nine other PP producers operating in the market, sources said, adding that it will be difficult for one company to exert much influence. It also does not change the most significant factor in the market, which is the short supply of feedstock propylene, sources said.

MRC

(Domo chemicals) -- As from July 1st, 2011, Domo Polypropylene BV becomes Ducor Petrochemicals BV. Ducor Petrochemicals, a joint venture between Domo Chemicals and Carmel Olefins, offers a wide range of polyolefins (polypropylene homopolymers, polypropylene block copolymers, polypropylene random copolymers and low density polyethylene) as well as refinery products, such as paraffin wax.

The core business remains unchanged as Ducor Petrochemicals continues to be a market oriented producer of polypropylene. The production in Rozenburg, The Netherlands, guarantees a flexible, customer oriented supply of a wide range of polypropylene products.

The strategic alliance with Carmel Olefins, part of the Oil Refineries Group, enables Ducor Petrochemicals to offer both complementary and supplementary polyolefins as well as other petrochemical products.

MRC

(Plastics Today) -- Rapid prototyping is increasingly helping General Motors accelerate the creative process and reduce the time and money spent on clay modeling and molding of expensive prototype parts for aerodynamic, test track, and on-road evaluations, effectively doubling testing capacity for the OEM over the last two years.

GM says its use of selective laser sintering (SLS) and stereolithography (SLA) have allowed its designers to quickly and inexpensively go from computer models to one-off parts for wind-tunnel testing, for example, so more iterations can be tested in less time. In this case, aerodynamics engineers can put a current production vehicle into the wind-tunnel and quickly swap out RP bumper covers, grilles, spoilers, and mirrors between test runs.

GM points out that in the past, modelers would carve a rough approximation of the front structure and the engine from foam or wood to evaluate the air flow through the engine bay, while today, GM's 3D prototyping lab can generate a fully detailed model including the engine, transmission, brake lines, drive-shafts, exhaust system, suspension, and other components under the car.

MRC