Leak at Cedar Bayou chemical plant

(Bloomberg) -- The alarms sounded at Chevron Phillips Chemical Co.'s Cedar Bayou chemical plant in Baytown, Texas, after a ⌠small leak was detected in a process unit. The leak has been brought under control and has had no impact to the community.


The Cedar Bayou plant is the largest owned by the Chevron Corp. and ConocoPhillips JV, and has eight process units including two olefins units.

MRC

Arvand Petrochemical Complex to come on steam

TEHRAN (Tehran Times) -- The Arvand Petrochemical Complex will soon be officially inaugurated as the largest polyvinyl chloride (PVC) producer in the Middle East. The complex is located in Mahshahr, southwest of Iran, and will come on stream at the cost of one billion euro.

"The complex will produce over 240,000 tons of polyvinyl chloride (PVC). It is also projected to annually produce 660,000 tons of caustic soda, 340,000 tons of vinyl chloride, and 890,000 tons of ethylene dichloride.

MRC

Karpatneftehim to launch four new lines in a month

(Minprom) -- After a two-year overhaul, polyethylene and ethylene workshops are to be launched by the end of August at Kalush-based Karpatneftehim; in the first half of September two new lines - one chlorine and caustic soda, and a PVC unit will be started. Russia's Lukoil-Neftehim invested over $500 mln. into that project.

Comissioning is in process now in Kalush near Ivano-Frankovsk.Officially, polyethylene unit is to start operations on August 25; ethylene unit is to be launched on August 27, chlorine and soda line starts on September 14 and PVC line is to be launched on September 15.

MRC

Lanxess doubles its profit in Q2

(prw) -- Lanxess more than doubled Ebitda year-on-year to ┬269m in the second quarter, and accordingly forecasts Ebitda for business year 2010 of around ┬800m - up from May's estimate of ┬650-700m.

In Lanxess's performance polymers segment, sales rose 71% year-on-year to ┬958m in Q2. The segment's Ebitda jumped to ┬171m from ┬52m a year earlier, attributed to recovery in the tyre replacement and OEM industries.

Group sales overall increased 48% year-on-year to ┬1.83bn, due to both higher volumes and positive currency effects - a weaker euro against the US dollar and Brazilian real. Higher raw material costs were passed on to customers. Lanxess posted a group net profit of ┬131m in Q2, compared with ┬17m a year earlier.

MRC

Dow and Aramco confirmed Jubail for the new JV project

(plastemart) -- Saudi Aramco and Dow Chemical Co have confirmed Jubail Industrial City as the planned site location for their proposed joint venture petrochemical project. The decision followed an in-depth evaluation anticipated infrastructure benefits and various potential business integration opportunities at the location - the largest industrial complex of its kind in the world. Front-end engineering and design (FEED) work is expected to be completed in mid-2011.

MRCMRC Reference

Share in the Russian market, 2008:

polyethylene - 2.5% (including LLDPE - 33.1%);

polypropylene - 0.8% (including PP-impact - 1.1%);

polystyrene - 2.6%.

Annual sales growth in Russia, recent 5 years:

polyethylene - 55%;

polypropylene - 28%;

polystyrene - 2%.

Imports by processing technologies:

pipe extrusion;

film extrusion;

sheet extrusion;

foaming