Deceuninck FY sales fall as consumer confidence wanes

(Reuters) -- Belgian group Deceuninck's sales fell by almost 4 percent in 2011 as gloomier consumers spent less money on its high-tech PVC window frames, it said on Thursday.

"The worldwide economic environment impacted consumer confidence in most regions, this reduced the willingness to invest in insulation improvements in the residential market," Chief Executive Tom Debusschere said in a statement.

In its home country, people were the most pessimistic in January that they have been for two and a half years due to government austerity measures and the financial crisis, data from the central bank showed last week.


Deceuninck's sales decline, however, was less steep than the 20 percent fall it saw in 2009, when the banking crisis was in full swing.

Full-year sales of 536 million euros (USD 695.4 million) were broadly in line with analysts' consensus.

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Japan Tosoh continues to curb output at naphtha cracker

(Reuters) - Japan's Tosoh Corp, an integrated chemical producer, said on Wednesday it did not know how long it would continue curbing production at its sole 527,000 tonnes per year (tpy) naphtha cracker due to slow ethylene demand.


The company has lowered its runs at the cracker to below 90 percent since sometime in October-December after operating at near full capacity in April-September, a Tosoh spokesman said.

The firm has still not set definite dates for planned maintenance on the cracker, though this has been slated to happen from mid-March to mid-April, he added.

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Penford and Novomer to partner to drive development and commercialization

(Plastemart) -- Penford Corporation, a company with significant business and expertise in specialty starches and sustainable bio-products and Novomer Inc., a new materials company pioneering a family of high-performance plastics and polymers using renewable feedstocks such as carbon dioxide, announce that they have entered into a Joint Development Agreement that will leverage the two companies' core technologies and expertise. he new alliance was created to accelerate the development and commercialization of innovative Starch-Polypropylene Carbonate polymer composites.


Unmodified starch use has been limited due to inherent performance characteristics but has long been targeted as a cost effective, renewable material for a broad range of packaging applications. When modified, specialty starches can be compatible with other polymers to extend the use and modify the properties of those polymers for targeted uses.


Polypropylene Carbonate (PPC), a thermoplastic polymer composed of nearly 50% by weight of waste CO2, has superior mechanical and barrier properties and a chemical backbone that is compatible and likely synergistic with specialty modified starch. It is anticipated that the creation of starch-PPC composites will yield low cost, environmentally sustainable packaging polymers suitable for the multi-billion dollar global packaging materials market.

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Non-biodegradable PE bags are banned in Italy

(Plasteurope) -- A year after Italy became the first European country to ban non-biodegradable PE bags. Regulations as to the permitted levels of degradability are still controversial. As retailers were permitted to use up their stocks of non-biodegradable bags up to the end of 2011, the switch evidently is not yet visible. But with former EU commissioner Mario Monti now in the prime minister's seat, it appears that attempts by plastics industry groupings to torpedo the legislation have definitely failed.

For its own purposes, Italy will adopt the EU degradability standard EN 13432, part of the European Packaging Directive EC 94/62. This specifies, among other things, that the material must break down by at least 90% in less than six months. Some bag manufacturers and organisations are critical. Part of the trade union sector complains that the legislation will lead to many job losses, while others argue that it will benefit plans to set up a ⌠green plastics hub at the former Vinyls Italia site of Porto Torres in Sardinia . Plastics converters who produce bags contend that the cost of retooling equipment will be prohibitive.


In mid-January, environmental organisations called on the European Commission (EC) to finally move toward regulating plastic bags. The high level of support shown by EU private citizens for such a move - 53% participating in an EU query strongly favoured an outright ban - ⌠means that the Commission will be under pressure to take action, the organisations said in a statement.


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Sabic resumed its PE and PP production at Al-Jubail

(CHEMMONITOR) -- Several production units engaged in polyethylene (PE) and polypropylene (PP) production recommenced their activity at Al-Jubail (Saudi Arabia) last week. The facilities belong to SABIC, a domestic maker.


The plants were idle for 2 days on the back of the power outage at the locality.


The company does not estimate its production losses as large ones.


The accident affected also others PE and PP manufacturer running plants at the site. They were forced to suspend operations, as well.


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