S-Oil's newly expanded Onsan plant in Ulsan officially opened

(Plastemart) -- S-Oil's newly expanded Onsan Plant in Ulsan has been officially opened. The project, which doubled the plant's petrochemicals production capacity to 1.7 mln tons, was completed in April and the expanded facility went into commercial operations in May. This was followed by the stabilization period, during which the company ensured that all systems were running as intended.

⌠The new facilities are the starting line for S-Oil's future, not the final destination, and we will expand our business territory to petrochemicals downstream and further to solar energy business of manufacturing poly silicon, Subaey said. The 1.3 trillion won (US$1.1 bln) expansion project pushed up the company's annual capacity for producing petrochemicals such as paraxylene and benzene from 1.24 mln metric tons to 2.46 mln tons.

In addition, the Onsan facility's daily crude oil refining capacity has also increased to 669,000 barrels from the previous 580,000 barrels. ⌠S-Oil exports about 60% of its petrochemical products and is now positioned as the largest paraxylene supplier in the region thanks to new capacity addition. On the back of solid demand growth in China and Asia, which make up 79% of global paraxylene demand, S-Oil will create stellar economic results with over 20% growth in operating income, the S-Oil CEO said.

MRC

(Reuters) -- Belgian PVC window frame maker Deceuninck lowered its outlook on Thursday, saying the global economic slowdown had caused consumers to delay insulating their homes. While previously forecasting 2011 revenue would remain flat, the group said it now expected a decline of 3-4 percent. "What we're seeing is an entire softening of the market, which is very typical in an industry like ours which is cyclical," Chief Executive Tom Debusschere told a conference call.

Shares of Deceuninck fell as much as 5.3 percent in early Thursday trading, compared with a decline of about 1 percent in the Belgian Midcap Index , of which it is a constituent. Deceuninck said it still expected a net profit for the full year as raw material prices had stabilised.

The group makes PVC-based products for the construction industry, such as motorway walls to block traffic noise, made from recycled PVC.

The group said demand was weakest in the U.S. and central and eastern Europe, while revenue rose in Germany and Turkey.

MRC

(ICIS) -- Purified terephthalic acid (PTA) prices in Asia hit an 11-month low and may continue falling, dragged down by declining values of feedstock paraxylene (PX), accompanied by slowing demand from the downstream polyester sector, industry sources said on Friday.

Spot PTA prices fell $60-65/tonne on 20 October to $1,080-1,120/tonne (┬788-818/tonne) CFR (cost & freight) CMP (China Main Port), levels last seen in early November 2010, while PX prices fell by $82/tonnne to $1,473-1,483/tonne CFR Taiwan/CMP, according to ICIS.

Panic-selling caused by sharp falls in PX values drove spot PTA prices down on Thursday, with values in the PTA futures market declining 6%. PTA offers declined as traders attempt to liquidate long positions, market sources said.

Decreasing export orders for China's major textile products on the back of continued weakness in the US economy and the debt crisis in the eurozone, as well as rising cloth inventory at Chinese factories, has dampened buying interest for polyester products, translating to much weaker consumption of PTA, industry sources said.

This week, the sales-to-output ratio of most polyester plants in China has declined to 50-70% in the past month from around 100% in early September.

MRC

Over the nine months of 2011, import supplies of GPPS to the Russian market made 32,600 tons, which was 113% more than supplies over the same period last year.

The main share of GPPS supplies in 2011 was from the South Korea (44%) and Belgium (28%). This year BASF increased supplies to the Russian market to 15,500 tons which makes 47% of total imports of the polymer.

The Russian market potential as well as competitive price from the foreign producers allowed to increase a share of imports in separate sectors of processing.

MRC

(MRC) -- In September, the Russian producers reduced output of unmixed PVC to 40,700 tonnes, due to limited supplies of ethylene. Over the nine months, overall production of polyvinylchloride exceeded 410,000 tonnes, according to MRC ScanPlast.

In September, the production of suspension PVC decreased to 38,800 tonnes. Sayanskchemplast and Caustic (Sterlitamak) declined the output at their facilities. The main reason for that was limited supplies of ethylene. Last month Angarsk Polymers Plant stopped for a scheduled turnaround, which resulted in reduced ethylene deliveries to Sayanskchemplast.

Caustic (Sterlitamak) short-received ethylene, due to low pressure in the ethylene tube Kazan-Nizhnekamsk-Sterlitamak-Salavat. Recently the company has declared its intention to build a separate ethylene tube in cooperation with Gazprom neftechem Salavat.

In September, PVC-E production at Chemprom (Volgograd) facilities made almost 2,000 tonnes. At the end of this week the company plans to stop its PVC capacities for a week turnaround. Some market participants have already faced the interruptions in the resin supplies to the domestic market.

Over the nine months, Russian production of unmixed PVC made 411,000 tonnes, which was 2% less year on year.Overall PVC-S production over the three quarters of 2011 amounted to 394,400 tonnes. Last year this index made 402,200 tonnes. PVC-E production remained almost the same as last year - 16,600 tonnes.

MRC