Shell to announce the location of a cracker complex in the northeast of the US in January

(ICIS) -- Shell expects to announce the location of its proposed world-scale ethane cracker complex in the northeast of the US in January, a company spokeswoman said on Thursday. ⌠We hope to make a decision by year-end on the site and likely would announce it in January, Houston-based Shell spokeswoman Alexandra Smith told ICIS.

Smith was commenting on an industry report released on Thursday that cited a Shell executive as saying that the company had short-listed a number of possible sites in Ohio, Pennsylvania and West Virginia.

Last month, Brian Davis, Shell's head of base chemicals, told ICIS that Shell had narrowed its options down to a handful of sites on either side of the Ohio River. The options include former steel and coal manufacturing sites.

Shell's cracker will tap into feedstock made available from Shell's shale gas acreage in the Marcellus field, which extends through West Virginia, Ohio and Pennsylvania. Meanwhile, Canada-based NOVA Chemicals has contracted with producers in the Marcellus Shale to ship ethane to its petrochemicals complex at Corunna in southern Ontario. NOVA's Corunna cracker is only about 300 miles (483km) from the Marcellus formation.

Perspectives of development of polymer markets, pricing issues and other important aspects will be discussed at The Polymers Summit-2011, which will be held in Moscow on November 30, 2011 at the Ritz Carlton Hotel. The Summit will be organized by MRC with the support of ICIS. The main idea of the Summit is to find a "the golden mean" between producers and converters. When producers receive exactly such margin of production, which helps them to invest in production expansion in order to substitute polymers imports, and the converters receive such price of feedstock that helps them to compete imported finished products. The Summit site gives an access to the live video of the Summit, speakers" presentations, as well as opportunities to ask questions or make appointments to any Summit partcipant.

MRC

(PlastEurope) -- Braskem reported a BRL 1.05 bn (EUR 438m) net loss for the third quarter, compared with a BRL 532m profit for the same period last year, as a result of increased financial expenses. The Brazilian resins giant said the depreciation of the Brazilian real increased the cost of its US dollar-denominated debt. EBITDA for the three month period declined 9% to BRL 940m compared with the same period last year, as a result of lower prices for basic petrochemicals and resins. Revenues grew 15% to BRL 8.69 bn. Brazilian resin prices remained in line with international prices, which fell 7% in the third quarter compared with Q2, Braskem said.

Braskem invested BRL 1.35 bn in the first nine months of 2011. Most of this was directed at capacity expansions, including a 200,000 t/y PVC project in Alagoas / Brazil, a 100,000 t/y butadiene project in Triunfo / Brazil and a joint venture integrated ethylene and PE project in Mexico. The PVC project is scheduled to start up in May 2012, while the butadiene project is expected to start up in July 2012.

Perspectives of development of polymer markets, pricing issues and other important aspects will be discussed at The Polymers Summit-2011, which will be held in Moscow on November 30, 2011 at the Ritz Carlton Hotel. The Summit will be organized by MRC with the support of ICIS. The main idea of the Summit is to find a "the golden mean" between producers and converters. When producers receive exactly such margin of production, which helps them to invest in production expansion in order to substitute polymers imports, and the converters receive such price of feedstock that helps them to compete imported finished products. The Summit site gives an access to the live video of the Summit, speakers" presentations, as well as opportunities to ask questions or make appointments to any Summit partcipant.

MRC

(Plastemart) -- Toray Industries, Inc. succeeded in producing laboratory-scale samples of the world's first fully renewable biobased PET fiber by using fully renewable biobased PET derived from biobased paraxylene from Gevo, Inc., a leading company in renewable chemicals and advanced biofuels. Gevo has succeeded in converting isobutanol, produced from biomass by employing its own highly effective production method that uses synthetic biology, to synthesize para-xylene employing conventional chemical process used in commercial operations.Toray used terephthalic acid synthesized from Gevo's biobased para-xylene and commercially available renewable mono ethylene glycol (MEG) as raw materials, and successfully produced the PET samples by applying a new technology and PET polymerization in June this year. This biobased PET has exhibited properties equivalent to petro-based PET in laboratory conditions.

Toray has also succeeded in the production of a fiber using this fully renewable biobased PET for the first time in the world. The success of this trial, albeit under laboratory conditions, is proof that polyester fiber can be industrially produced from fully renewable biomass feedstock alone. This is a significant step that would contribute to the realization of a sustainable, low-carbon society.

Perspectives of development of polymer markets, pricing issues and other important aspects will be discussed at The Polymers Summit-2011, which will be held in Moscow on November 30, 2011 at the Ritz Carlton Hotel. The Summit will be organized by MRC with the support of ICIS. The main idea of the Summit is to find a "the golden mean" between producers and converters. When producers receive exactly such margin of production, which helps them to invest in production expansion in order to substitute polymers imports, and the converters receive such price of feedstock that helps them to compete imported finished products. The Summit site gives an access to the live video of the Summit, speakers" presentations, as well as opportunities to ask questions or make appointments to any Summit partcipant.

MRC

(ICIS) -- Brent crude futures fell by more than $1/bbl on Thursday amid concerns over eurozone debt, but the price spread between WTI and Brent narrowed, with the US benchmark buoyed by a plan to reverse the oil flow of a pipeline from the US midwest to the Gulf coast region.

At 12:05 GMT, January Brent crude on London's ICE futures exchange was trading at $109.50/bbl, down by $2.38/bbl from the previous close. Earlier, the North Sea benchmark fell to a session low of $109.35/bbl, down by $2.53/bbl from Wednesday's close.

December NYMEX light sweet crude futures (WTI) were at $101.03/bbl, down by $1.56/bbl from the previous close. Earlier, the US benchmark fell to a session low of $100.84/bbl, down by $1.75/bbl.

Concerns over the eurozone rose on Thursday amid tensions between France and Germany over the role of the European Central Bank (ECB) in countering the eurozone debt crisis. France has urged the ECB to take on a more active role. Analysts have suggested the ECB should buy large volumes of European bonds in a move similar to the quantitative-easing programmes implemented by the US and UK. However, Germany insists that European regulations prevent such measures.

Perspectives of development of polymer markets, pricing issues and other important aspects will be discussed at The Polymers Summit-2011, which will be held in Moscow on November 30, 2011 at the Ritz Carlton Hotel. The Summit will be organized by MRC with the support of ICIS. The main idea of the Summit is to find a "the golden mean" between producers and converters. When producers receive exactly such margin of production, which helps them to invest in production expansion in order to substitute polymers imports, and the converters receive such price of feedstock that helps them to compete imported finished products. The Summit site gives an access to the live video of the Summit, speakers" presentations, as well as opportunities to ask questions or make appointments to any Summit partcipant.

MRC

(ICIS) -- Asia's diethylene glycol (DEG) prices are expected to fall further through the rest of the year because of the arrival of a large volume of deep-sea cargoes in China, market sources said on Thursday. The prices fell to a 16-month low of $980-990/tonne (┬725-733/tonne) CFR (cost & freight) CMP (China Main Port) on 17 November, down by $10-30/tonne from the previous week, according to ICIS.

A total of 50,000-55,000 tonnes of deep-sea cargoes for loading in December were heard to be offloaded into China, traders said.

China normally imports 25,000-30,000 tonnes/month of deep-sea cargoes, with 80-85% coming from the Middle East. The remaining imports are from the region, mainly Taiwan. ⌠We received offers of 2,000 tonnes of Canada-origin cargoes from US-based Dow Chemical, which was not seen in the market in the last two years, a major Shanghai-based trader said. In addition, there were offers of 3,000 tonnes of Canada-origin cargoes from Shell, the trader added.

The demand in Europe is poor possibly because of the slowdown in the solar panel manufacturing industry, where DEG is used as a cutting solution, according to an industry source. China rarely imports DEG from Europe and regularly imports the material from Saudi Arabia, Taiwan, Kuwait and Iran.


Perspectives of development of polymer markets, pricing issues and other important aspects will be discussed at The Polymers Summit-2011, which will be held in Moscow on November 30, 2011 at the Ritz Carlton Hotel. The Summit will be organized by MRC with the support of ICIS. The main idea of the Summit is to find a "the golden mean" between producers and converters. When producers receive exactly such margin of production, which helps them to invest in production expansion in order to substitute polymers imports, and the converters receive such price of feedstock that helps them to compete imported finished products. The Summit site gives an access to the live video of the Summit, speakers" presentations, as well as opportunities to ask questions or make appointments to any Summit partcipant.

MRC