BPE denied selling illegally the 5% Federal Government shares in Eleme Petrolchemical

(Plastemart) -- The Bureau of Public Enterprises (BPE) has denied selling the 5% Federal Government shares in Eleme Petrolchemical Co Ltd. illegally for N4.375 bln to Inorama, as per Nigerianpilot. As per its spokesman, the bureau has always adhered to the National Council on Privatization's approval for sales of government entities, that the Eleme Petrochemical transaction was not an exception. He elaborated that EPCL was about to embark a on multi-billion dollar expansion programme, and that the inherent threat of FGN's five per cent shareholding being diluted as a result of recapitalization, necessitated the decision by the Technical Committee of the National Council on Privatisation to negotiate the price for the sale of the shares, on the understanding that the approval of the National Council on Privatisation would be obtained before closure of the transaction.

MRC

(TodayOnline) -- Temasek Holdings, Singapore's state-owned investment company, is considering selling its stake in Indonesia's PT Chandra Asri Petrochemical, five people with knowledge of the matter said.

Thailand's Siam Cement and PTT Chemical are among companies that have expressed interest in buying Temasek's 22.9 per cent holding, said the people, who declined to be identified because the talks are private. The stake is valued at about 2.2 trillion rupiah (S$313 million) based on Chandra Asri's market capitalisation, data compiled by Bloomberg show.

Chandra Asri Petrochemical was formed this year through the merger of PT Chandra Asri and PT Tri Polyta Indonesia. Temasek owns shares through its Apleton Investment unit and has held a minority stake in Chandra Asri since 2006. Jakarta-based PT Barito Pacific owns 71.9 per cent of the stock.

Shares of Chandra Asri have dropped by 24 per cent in the past two months, cutting its market value to 9.4 trillion rupiah.

MRC

(Plastics Today) -- Family-owned water bottler Niagara Bottling LLC, headquartered in Ontario, CA, is expanding again with its announcement of construction of a new 310,000-sf plant in Mooresville, NC. Niagara has its own captive plastics processing operations to include perform molding, bottle blowmolding and injection molding of closures.

Niagara Bottling is one of the largest privately held producers and suppliers of bottled water in the United States, with nine manufacturing plants throughout the country. Andrew Peykoff Sr. started Niagara Bottling in 1963, when he began bottling water in 5-gallon glass bottles for home and office delivery. Today, the company has two plants in Ontario, CA, and another facility in Irvine, CA which the company opened in 1973. The company has added a new facility almost every year since 2006.

All of the company's plants are vertically integrated and process PET preforms, bottles and caps. One of the company's Ontario facilities also blowmolds HDPE containers in 1 and 2.5-gallon sizes in addition to PET bottles. The facilities produce water bottles in 8 oz., 12 oz., and 0.5-liter sizes.

MRC

MOSCOW (MRC)-- Over the seven months, Ukrainian companies increased PE imports to 174.3 KT, that was 5% more year on year. In July, total volume of PE import made 23.3 KT, according to MRC DataScope.

This year the peak of PE import to the Ukrainian market was observed in March (27.5 KT). Low pressure polyethylene (HDPE) prevails in the import supplies.

Overall volume of HDPE import in 2011 increased by 19% and made 76.4 KT. Other PE grades demonstrated negative dynamic. Following the seven months results, the supplies of LDPE and LLDPE decreased by 2% and 10% respectively.

The structure of HDPE supplies to the Ukrainian market has changed significantly. The largest increase in imports was observed in the sector of pipe polyethylene. This year supplies to this sector has increased by 52% and made 22.3KT (including supplies of uncolored pipe HDPE).

The leader of pipe HDPE market leader is colored PE100 by Sabic. In July, the most significant increase in pipe PE import was fixed in the material for production of pressure water pipe of PE4PP25B grade by Stavrolen.

Return to HDPE production at Karpatneftechem (Lukoil group) in 2010 reduced the volume of PE film import by 2% to 25.5KT. The leaders in imports are PE grades of Liten FB 75 (Czech company Unipetrol) and PE 293-285D (Russian Kazanorgsyntez).

Full interpretation of the analytics on the Ukrainian PE market by grades, technologies, converters is available in MRC DataScope for May, June and July, 2011

MRC

(ICIS) -- US propylene contracts for August began to settle flat on Friday, pressured by a drop in energy prices in the past two weeks.

US producers had originally sought a 3 cent/lb increase for the month, but buyers resisted the initiative and pushed for a rollover after crude oil prices started to falter. Market sources said that, except for one supplier, all settlement participants had agreed to the rollover.

The settlement keeps polymer-grade propylene (PGP) at 78 cents/lb (USD 1.720/tonne, EUR 1.204/tonne) and chemical-grade propylene at 76.50 cents/lb. US propylene contracts usually settle at the beginning of the month being negotiated.

Upstream, crude oil prices ended 1.7% down for the week for a monthly drop of around 10%.
Market activity this week centred on renewed jitters about the global economy, following the US credit downgrade by Standard & Poor's.

MRC