Japan's Kuraray to raise EVOH resins output at its subsidiary's plant in Pasadena

(PlastEurope) -- In response to rising demand for its ⌠Eval EVOH resins, Kuraray (Tokyo / Japan) has announced a EUR 40m investment to raise ⌠Eval output at its North American subsidiary's plant in Pasadena, Texas. The 12,000 t/y capacity expansion is due to come on stream in January 2014. Kuraray currently has capacity to turn out 35,000 t/y of EVOH at the site.

The Japanese group also operates a 24,000 t/y EVOH line in Antwerp / Belgium as well as a 10,000 t/y facility in Okayama / Japan. Thanks to its gas barrier properties, ⌠Eval largely is used in food packaging applications to offer better preservation, as well as for automotive fuel tanks.

Perspectives of development of the polymers 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 is 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

(Arabian oil and gas) -- Saudi Aramco will not continue to increase its production capacity, and will instead focus on natural gas and integrating its expanding downstream operations, says Khalid al-Falih, CEO of Saudi Aramco.

⌠The downstream [refining] is increasingly growing in scale to equal, and sometimes eclipse, the level of spending we are doing in upstream [oil production], al-Falih told journalists gathered in Riyadh, according to a Reuters report. ⌠In the short to medium term, our focus is on gas."

Referring to Saudi's requirements under OPEC, Falih said ⌠Saudi Aramco has more spare capacity than the kingdom is obligated to or has committed to ... so it wouldn't make sense" to increase capacity by more than 12 million barrels per day. Saudi Arabia had previously committed $100 billion for projects targeting increased oil production capacity, but will now halt this once the Kingdom has the capacity to pump 12 million barrels per day.

Perspectives of development of the polymers 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 is 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) -- The US said on Monday that it was broadening sanctions against Iran to pressure the Tehran regime to end its suspected nuclear weapons programme, including a new US boycott of foreign firms doing business with Iranian petrochemicals entities. Under the sanctions announced by the White House and State Department, non-US firms that do business with the Iranian petrochemicals sector would be subject to unspecified penalties and possibly barred from doing business with the US.

US companies have long been barred from doing business with Iran. Successive US administrations have been steadily broadening sanctions against the Tehran government in an effort to halt its suspected nuclear weapons programme.

The new sanctions announced on Monday come in the wake of findings issued earlier this month by the International Atomic Energy Agency that Tehran was advancing steps to build nuclear weapons.
In a statement from the White House, President Barack Obama said that the US was taking additional steps, in cooperation with Canada and the UK, ⌠to further isolate and penalise Iran for its refusal to live up to its international obligations regarding its nuclear programme. ⌠New sanctions target for the first time Iran's petrochemical sector, Obama said, ⌠prohibiting the provision of goods, services and technology to this sector. Obama said that the US would impose unspecified penalties ⌠against any person or entity that engages in such activity with the Iranian petrochemicals industry.
The sanctions announced on Monday also expand earlier provisions designed to impede and perhaps cripple Iran's oil and natural gas sectors.


Perspectives of development of the polymers 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 is 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) -- Cristal Global (Jeddah/Saudi Arabia) is planning to build a TiO2 slag plant in Yanbu/Saudi Arabia. The company has selected Outotec (Espoo/Finland) to build the plant, which will process 800,000 t/y of ilmenite ore to produce 500,000 t/y of 85% TiO2, with 235,000 t/y of high purity pig iron as a valuable co-product. The plant will be constructed on a turnkey basis, and is expected to become operational in Q4 2013. It will be scalable to a maximum production of 1m t/y of TiO2 slag, Cristal said. The company signed a letter of intent for the project with Outotec on 31 October 2011.

Perspectives of development of the polymers 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 is 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) -- SCG Chemicals and Barito Pacific are seeking US$500 mln (Bt15.6 bln) to expand ethylene capacity at Chandra Asri Perochemical (CAP) to 800,000-1000,000 tpa from the current 550,000 tpa. Production capacity for polyethylene will be increased from 340,000 tpa, polypropylene from 480,000 tonss and styrene monomer from 320,000tpa.

CAP is Indonesia's largest petrochemical company in which Barito owns the largest shareholding at 70%. SCG Chemicals, the biggest unit of Siam Cement Group, Thailand's largest industrial conglomerate, in September acquired 30% of CAP for US$442 mln.

The two are considering a public offering in the Indonesian stock market and borrowing from banks with the expectation of making a decision early next year so that the increased capacity can come on stream in 2013.

Perspectives of development of the polymers 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 is 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