Asia PET up USD 50-70/tonne

(ICIS) -- Asian polyethylene terephthalate (PET) bottle chip producers hiked their offers for August to at least USD 1.700/tonne (EUR 1.190/tonne) this week, USD 50-70/tonne higher than last week's assessed prices, on the back of surging raw material costs, industry sources said on Wednesday.

Offers from two Chinese producers advanced to USD 1.700-1.720/tonne FOB (free on board) China, from last week's level of USD 1.650/tonne FOB China. Some deals were heard concluded at USD 1.670-1.680/tonne FOB China early this week for exports to South America and Africa. But a producer has yet to conclude deals at the new offer level.

PET offers in Asian on Wednesday were up USD 50/tonne from the start of the week, while some sellers refrained from making offers given the ongoing instability in raw material costs. Market sources expect one PET producer will likely resume offers this afternoon at USD 1.720/tonne FOB NE (northeast) Asia.

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(ICIS) -- Petrochemicals giant BASF will return lower-than-expected profits in 2011 but remains undervalued on the German bourse, analysts at US-based Bernstein Research said on Wednesday.
BASF's earnings per share (EPS) will be an estimated EUR 6.57 (USD 9.39) in 2011, the Bernstein analysts said, down from the EUR 7.13 they forecast earlier in 2011. They also cut their target share price for BASF by 3.9%, from EUR 77 to 74.

The lower outlook for the company comes after a second quarter in which the company failed to meet analysts' expectations, pushing its share price down 5%.

However, Bernstein believes that the company remains significantly undervalued, and their target share price is well above the EUR 59.76 seen in trading on Germany's DAX on 3 August. Bernstein's earnings forecast remains as much as 10% above other analysts', the research company said, giving BASF's shares an Outperform rating.


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(PlasticsToday) -- Bioplastics supplier Cardia is winning the 2011 Asia Pacific Green Excellence in Technology Innovation Award from Frost & Sullivan and PET preform molder APPE won the 'Beyond the Package' award in the Greener Package Awards for its PET recycling efforts.

Cardio Bioplastics has been presented the 2011 Asia Pacific Frost & Sullivan Green Excellence in Technology Innovation Award for Eco-Materials. Frost & Sullivan is a technology and growth consultancy.

Frost & Sullivan presents its Green Excellence Awards to companies it says have excelled in green product and technology innovation, and service achievements that promote sustainability. Cardia develops, manufactures and markets plastics derived from renewable resources for packaging and other applications. The company's materials are supplied from its plant in Nanjing, China.

European perform molder and bottle blowmolder APPE, meanwhile, the former Artenius PET Packaging (and before that Amcor's PET processing operation in Europe), has won the 'Beyond the Package' award in the Greener Package Awards for the plastic processor's initiatives in recycled PET production and the 100% remanufacture of the material into packaging applications.

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(Platts) -- Chilean producer Petroquim is expected to restart operations of its 100 KTa polypropylene (PP) plant in Concepcion, Chile, by August 3, after a maintenance shutdown that started on July 25, a company source told Platts Monday.

The impact of the shutdown was 60-70% less volumes of polypropylene to offer to the export market on July and August.

August Chilean offers to Peru and Ecuador went down USD 50-70/mt and they were heard around USD 1.850/mt CFR for homo and at USD 1.950/mt CFR for co-polymer.

For the Chilean domestic market, Petroquim dropped offer prices by USD 70/mt for August reaching levels of USD 1.900/mt CIF homo raffia, injection and film and at USD 2.000/mt CFR for random.

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(ICIS) -- Wacker Chemie's second-quarter net profit increased by 5.4% to EUR 142.7m (USD 203.9m) compared with the same period last year, as sales rose 10.3%, the Munich-based, worldwide chemical company said on Tuesday.

Sales for the second quarter rose to EUR 1.33bn from EUR 1.20bn in the same period in 2010, mainly due to higher sales volumes generated by sustained customer demand.

Earnings before interest, tax, depreciation and amortisation (EBITDA) in the second quarter rose 5.2% to EUR 324.8m, compared with the same period last year, Wacker added.

Wacker said that although it was able to negotiate higher prices in its silicones and polymers segments, a negative impact from currency exchange-rate effects and higher raw materials costs had dampened earnings performance.

MRC