Damietta locals vow to continue their sit-in against MOPCO petrochemicals company

(Daily News Egypt) -- After a six-day strike across the governorate, Damietta locals vow to continue their sit-in against MOPCO petrochemicals company despite a decree by the Supreme Council of the Armed Forces (SCAF) to shut down the plant. In Damietta, where the Nile and Mediterranean meet, roads across the city are still blocked with burnt tires and broken palm trees, keeping workers from going in and out of the main port in the city.

Ahmed Fekry, a leading member of the Freedom and Justice Party of Damietta said that the minute residents hear that there might be a violent crackdown by security, 3,000 to 4,000 citizens can immediately hit the streets

Protesters are demanding that governorate officials finally heed their calls to shut down the factory, which they say is ⌠deadly and hazardous to residents, marine life, as well as agricultural. ⌠We want to see in the hands of Damietta's governor a clear written statement saying that the factory will be shut down giving concise reasons, said Fekry.

However, executives from Egypt's Petrochemical Holding company told DNE that they have indeed received orders to shut down the plant but were not given details as to why. ⌠The SCAF has ordered every phase of the plant to be completely shut down to respect the people's will, a spokesman from the ruling military council told DNE in a telephone interview.

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 purified terephthalic acid (PTA) producers are mulling further cutbacks in production to stem losses being incurred since last month, given a sharper slump in their product prices compared to feedstock paraxylene (PX), industry sources said on Friday. The price spread between PTA and PX has narrowed to $90-110/tonne (┬67-81/tonne) in November, compared with $300-400/tonne seen in January to April 2011.

⌠If the situation remains, a larger scale of production cutbacks is expected across Asia in December, which will finally underpin PTA prices and bring down PX demand and prices, a Shanghai-based trader said.

From a year high seen in late March, PTA values have tumbled 31% to $1,030-1,080/tonne CFR China Main Port (CMP) on 11 November because of PTA capacity expansion, poor macroeconomic environment and soft downstream demand, particularly, in China. Spot PX prices declined 20% to $1,435-1,445/tonne CFR CMP over the same period, ICIS data showed.


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) -- China Petroleum & Chemical Corp (Sinopec) and Kuwait Petroleum Corp have embarked upon construction of their 59 billion yuan (US$9.3 bln) joint refining and petrochemical complex in the southern Chinese province of Guangdong, as per Reuters. The project includes a 300,000 bpd refinery and a 1 mln tpa ethylene cracker, expected to come on line in 2015.

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) -- 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