LyondellBasell board authorizes dividend increase

(PRNewswire) -- LyondellBasell today announced that its Supervisory Board has authorized the company's Management Board to declare a dividend of USD 0.20 per share, double the amount of the company's initial dividend paid in May 2011. The dividend of USD 0.20 per share will be paid on Sept. 7, 2011 to shareholders of record as of Aug. 17, 2011, subject to the adoption of a resolution by the Management Board, which is expected to occur on August 17.

LyondellBasell is one of the world's largest plastics, chemical and refining companies. The company manufactures products at 58 sites in 18 countries. LyondellBasell products and technologies include packaging, electronics, automotive parts, home furnishings, construction materials and biofuels.

MRC

(ICIS) -- US-based Westlake plans to increase ethylene capacity by nearly 226.8 KTa by expanding its two crackers in Louisiana, the polyethylene (PE) and polyvinyl chloride (PVC) producer said on Tuesday.

The company is also considering plans to convert its cracker in Calvert City, Kentucky, to crack ethane instead of propane, said chief executive Albert Chao during the company's second quarter earnings call.

The first expansion will come in the second half of 2012 at one of the company's crackers in Lake Charles, Louisiana. The project will increase capacity by about 108.8 KTa. Then in 2014, Westlake plans to expand the second Lake Charles cracker by 113.3 KTa. Currently, both crackers have a combined ethylene capacity about 1.1m tonnes/year, according to ICIS plants and projects.

MRC

(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.

MRC

(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.


MRC

(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.

MRC