Reichhold announces price increases for coating resins sold in North America

(reichhold) -- Reichhold, Inc. announces a general price increase of 5% on all solvent borne, water reducible and 100% solids alkyd, polyester and urethane resins. This increase is effective for all orders shipped on or after March 1, 2012 or as contracts allow.

Reichhold sales representatives will contact their accounts with specific details regarding individual product price increases.

Reichhold is one of the world's largest suppliers of unsaturated polyester resins for composites and a leading supplier of coating resins for a wide variety of markets and applications.

With its world headquarters in Research Triangle Park, North Carolina, USA, and 20 manufacturing sites and 5 technology centers located around the world, Reichhold has the widest global reach of any resin supplier today.

MRC

Arkema Coating Resins announces price increase for latex products in North America

(arkema-inc) -- Effective February 21, 2012 or as contracts allow, Arkema Coating Resins will increase pricing on all latex products sold in North America. ENCOR acrylic, styrene-acrylic, styrene-butadiene and NEOCAR Acrylic latexes will increase by USD 0.05 to USD 0.07 per wet pound. ENCOR vinyl-acrylic, vinyl acetate-ethylene and NEOCAR Latexes will increase by USD 0.02 to USD 0.03 per wet pound.


This action is necessary due to escalation in the cost of raw materials and transportation for latex products.

Customers should contact their Arkema Coating Resins account representative for additional details.

MRC

Lifocolor is investing in a new plant in Poland

(lifocolor) -- Lifocolor Farbplast (Bydgoszcz/Poland) a group member of the masterbatch producer Lifocolor Farben GmbH & Co. is investing EUR 2 mln in a new plant in Bydgoszcz. The facility is located in "Bydgoski Park Przemyslowo-Technologiczny" at the south eastern border of the town.

With this new plant Lifocolor Farbplast increases its previous production and warehouse area to 3,000 m, three times more than its previous size. Start of operation is in September 2012.

The new production area will be equipped for batch sizes from 5 kg to 5 tonnes with a total masterbatch capacity of up to 1,000 tons per year. Place for further construction is present.

In Bydgoszcz Lifocolor Farbplast has been developing and manufacturing masterbatches with 20 employees for over 15 years now. The company is certified according to ISO 9001:2008.


Most of the colour settings for the thermoplastic polymers are developed in the adjacent colour lab. Standardized raw materials and a close networking with the other Lifocolor sites in Germany, the Czech Republic and France enable Lifocolor Farbplast to produce and market masterbatches on a high quality level to serve local and global customers.

MRC

LANXESS invests EUR 20 million in aromatics network

(lanxess) -- Specialty chemicals company LANXESS is expanding cresol production at the Leverkusen site once again. It plans to further increase capacity for this high-quality intermediate for the global market by some 20 percent by mid 2013. Among other applications, cresols are widely used in the manufacture of vitamin E, resins and flame retardants and in the agrochemicals sector.

⌠This investment of around EUR 20 million in extending this facility is another clear statement by LANXESS highlighting the company's commitment to Germany and North Rhine-Westphalia as an industrial location, said Werner Breuers, member of the board of management of LANXESS AG. ⌠We expect sustainable market growth with cresols and have aligned our long-term planning to this.


The expansion is part of the business unit's long-term asset strategy. ⌠To be able to hold on to our world market position in the future, it will be necessary to consistently continue increasing our productivity. That's why in the near future we want to boost the capacities of other high-grade intermediates too, added Hubert Fink, head of the Advanced Industrial Intermediates business unit. ⌠This will enable us to share in the growth of our customers and meet their demand for reliable delivery even more effectively.

In the first expansion step completed in 2010, the company invested around EUR 35 million in the aromatics network, increasing capacities by up to 60 percent.

MRC

Indonesia to benefit from Chinese textile crisis

(fiber2fashion) -- Indonesia's textile industry is expecting to benefit from the slowdown in the Chinese textile sector, which is going through a crisis after the Government lifted subsidies and incentives provided to the sector.


The Chinese textile sector is also finding it difficult to find skilled workforce amid rising labour costs. This provides good opportunity for the Indonesian textile industry to capitalize on the situation and compete with China made goods, according to the Indonesian Textile Association (API).

The decrease in cotton prices from last year's record high is also a favourable aspect for the Indonesian textile
sector, the API said. The financial crisis in the EU and the US last year had no significant impact on Indonesian textile industry, as it found new markets in Asia. The sales in Indonesian domestic market have also increased last year, API added.
However, API said the high lending rates for the textile industry and the planned increase in electricity tariff from
April this year are impediments for the sector's growth. It said the Government should find solutions to these two aspects for sustainability of the country's textile industry, in view of the fact that the country's textile sector can employ up to 15 percent of the total workforce.


Banks currently retain credit interest rates for the textile industry in double digits, while it is in single digit in other
countries, API said. Meanwhile, Bank Indonesia (BI) said it would encourage commercial banks to extend loans to the textile industry at competitive rates.

MRC