S Korea's Honam plans to expand its Southeast Asian business

(polyestertime) -- South Korea's Honam Petrochemical is considering investing USD5 billion to build a steam cracker-based petrochemical complex in Indonesia to expand its Southeast Asian business.

But the company has not made a final investment decision on the complex and is hoping the Indonesian government will provide tax breaks and other benefits such as land for the project.

"If we are given tax benefits and land, we can start construction early next year," said the official, adding that the company was aiming to bring the complex online by 2016.

On the cards is a steam cracker with a capacity to produce 1 million mt/year of ethylene and 550,000 mt/year of propylene, said the official who declined to be named. The complex will also comprise a 600,000 mt/year polyethylene unit, a 700,000 mt/year monoethylene glycol unit, a 600,000 mt/year polypropylene unit and a 140,000 mt/year butadiene unit, he said.

Meanwhile, the official said the company has not signed a memorandum of understanding with Indonesia's state-owned Krakatau Steel for the provision of 40 hectares of land for the complex, refuting earlier media reports in Indonesia.

Honam is South Korea second-largest ethylene maker with a production capacity of 1.75 million mt/year. In a bid to tap the Southeast Asian market, the company in July 2010, acquired a 100% stake in Malaysia's biggest chemicals maker Titan Chemicals for USD950 million.

Lotte has said it plans to expand the production capacity of Titan Chemicals without elaborating. Titan Chemicals currently has a capacity to produce 720,000 mt/year of ethylene and 480,000 mt/year of propylene, among others.

mrcplast.com

(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-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) -- 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) -- 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