Procter & Gamble plans to eliminate PVC from packaging

(PlasticsToday) -- In a move to help eliminate all uses of PVC in its packaging, Procter & Gamble's Oral-B manual toothbrush is now made with Octal Petrochemicals' proprietary DPET (direct PET) sheet, a P&G spokesperson told PlasticsToday.

Prior to this, P&G had used PVC for its toothbrush packaging. The company began to avoid the use of PVC in its packaging in the early '90s, and PVC currently represents less than 1.5% of P&G's total use of its plastic packaging materials, according to the company.

P&G made the switch to PET because it is easier to recycle. In addition, PVC has also been the source of recurring controversy regarding its disposal to household solid waste incinerators, and its compatibility with plastics recycling, the company stated.

Octal COO Joe Barenberg said companies, such as P&G, are finding DPET an attractive solution due to its process for production of PET sheet, which provides a substantially lower carbon footprint than traditional PET.
Compared to traditional plants, Octal's DPET sheet uses 67% less electricity; a fact the company said has been verified by independent, third party sources.

Octal's DPET sheet can run on thermoforming equipment already being used for PVC, HIPS, and OPS with only minor modifications of hardware and processing parameters, according to Octal.

Part of P&G's long-term environmental sustainability vision includes using 100% renewable or recycled materials for all products and packaging, and having zero consumer and manufacturing waste go to landfills.

MRC

(ICIS) -- Polyethylene (PE) and polypropylene (PP) plants in Saudi Arabia's Al-Jubail Industrial Park were forced to shut on the evening of 19 January because of a power outage, raising concerns about polymer prices in China, southeast Asia and India, industry sources said on Friday.

Most of the PE, PP plants of SABIC and other major Saudi producers had to be shut down in the industrial complex following the power trip on Thursday evening. ⌠The power outage did not extend to the entire complex, so some crackers, PE, PP units are unaffected, a source close to SABIC said. ⌠Since not all the crackers were down, we can feed the feedstock to the PE and PP plants, reducing the impact of production loss, he said.

The largest of SABIC's PE and PP production facilities are housed in Al-Jubail, while other plants are based in Yanbu, he added. ⌠We have some linear low density polyethylene [LLDPE] inventories, so February allocations will not be severely affected, he added. The source was uncertain about the restart date of the affected plants.

MRC

(PlastEurope) -- Suspecting price fixing, Hungary's competition authority Gazdasagi Versenyhivatal has searched the offices of several plastic pipe manufacturers.
On 16 December 2011, the authorities showed up unannounced at the Hungarian subsidiaries of Wavin (Zwolle/The Netherlands) and Pipelife (Wiener Neudorf/Austria) as well as the premises of local producer BTH Fitting (Vadna/Hungary). The latter had recently been acquired by Tessenderlo (Brussels/Belgium) as part of the Belgium company's takeover of BT Bautechnik.

The authorities are investigating whether the pipe producers engaged in price fixing in 2006, when and by how much they lifted prices and whether they divvied up regional markets among themselves in an effort not to compete with each other. GVH said the inquiry should be completed within the next six months, but cautioned that if the matter turns out to be more complex, the investigation could be extended by another six months.

MRC

(Arabian oil and gas) -- Saudi Arabia's National Gas & Industrialisation Company (GASCO), has posted strong results for the close of 2011. GASCO transports, fills and markets LNG under a mandate from the Saudi government.

The company, based in Jubail, Saudi Arabia, posted net profit for the last quarter of 2011 of SR 49.8 million (USD13.2 million compared to profit of SR 25.5 million (USD6.8 million) in 2010, an increase of 95%.

The operating profit during the fourth quarter SR 31.6 million (USD8.42 million)compared to SR 22.9 million (USD6.1 million) for the same quarter of last year, with an increase of 38%.

Annual operating profit increased by SR 3 million to SR 90 million (USD24 million).

In a statement to the Saudi stock exchange - Tadawul - GASCO attributed the operating profit hikes to an increase in sales, and a boom in net profit to the company's divestment of stakes in banks and other non-core investments.

Shares in the company have increased in value by 7.05% over the last year, according to Bloomberg data.

MRC

(Reuters) - Taiwan's Formosa Petrochemical has bought around 75,000 tonnes of naphtha for February to March arrival, bringing its total purchases since mid-December to over 350,000 tonnes, traders said on Thursday.

The volumes were bought at a price of flat to premiums of $1.00 a tonne to Japan quotes on a cost-and-freight (C&F) basis, lower than what it had recently paid at USD3.00 a tonne premium.

Formosa operates a 2.93 million tonnes per year (tpy) cracking complex which are currently running below full-tilt due to weak plastics demand from China.

MRC