Quantum Kapital AG to acquire BASF's offset printing inks business in Maastricht

(basf) -- Quantum Kapital AG, headquartered in St. Gallen, Switzerland, plans to acquire BASF's offset printing inks business (IMEX) in Maastricht, Netherlands.

Quantum is a financial investor specialized in the acquisition and the successful development of non-strategic businesses of large companies. The sale covers all BASF's offset printing inks activities and includes the transfer of all BASF employees in Maastricht dedicated to the business. Currently 57 employees are working for the IMEX business of BASF. Quantum plans to continue the IMEX business at the Maastricht site. Legal closing of the transaction will be in the third quarter of 2012. The profitable IMEX business is expected to total sales of about 60 million Euro in 2012 and is an important supplier of heat set printing inks worldwide. The partners agreed not to reveal the purchasing price .

BASF sold its printing inks and printing plates business in 2004. The IMEX business was part of BASF's acquisition of former Ciba in 2009. At the Maastricht site BASF currently produces offset printing inks and pigment preparations for the plastics industry. The pigment preparations activities will be continued. Overall, through process and site optimization measures, BASF plans to decrease the number of the remaining positions at the Maastricht site from 92 to 73 by end of 2013. Some BASF employees affected by the planned restructuring will be offered a transfer to the IMEX business, and thus subsequently transfer to Quantum.

MRC

(chemnet) -- Russian gas giant Gazprom has sold its 80% holding in the Baltic LNG project to the Sibur petrochemical group, Baltic LNG general director Alexander Krasnenkov said in an interview published in Gazprom's corporate magazine Wednesday.

Sibur is in talks to acquire the remaining 20% in the project from Russia's largest shipper, Sovcomflot, Krasnenkov added.

The petrochemical company plans to use Baltic LNG's 120 hectare property to build a methanol plant, he said, reiterating a statement made in March 2011 to Gazprom's corporate publication. "Other companies may join the methanol plant project," Kransenkov added, providing no further details.

Gazprom abandoned plans to build the Baltic LNG plant in February 2008.

Initially, Gazprom had planned to build a 5.0-7.2 million mt/year LNG plant near the Primorsk port on the Baltic coast, "but the project didn't seem effective enough to Gazprom, so the decision was made to reject it in favor of Shtokman," Krasnenkov said in March 2011, referring to the giant gas project in the Barents Sea.

MRC

(Fibre2fashion) -- Luxi Chemical will instead of setting up a organic silicon project as announced earlier, will
now set up a 200,000 tons per annum caprolactam (CPL) plant.

In a filing, Luxi announced plans to terminate the second phase of an organic silicon project, and will instead
spend 1.2 billion Yuan raised through an Initial Public Offer (IPO) on a CPL plant.

Luxi will spend around 2.5 billion Yuan on setting up the CPL unit and expects the plant to generate around 4
billion Yuan in annual revenue.

MRC

(polyestertime) -- According to the Official Journal of the European Union, the EU Commission is to review whether or not to continue anti-dumping duties for polyethylene terephthalate resin coming to the European Union from India,
Indonesia, Malaysia, Taiwan and Thailand.

Anti-dumping measures on PET resin from above countries were placed since November 27, 2000 with an expiry review in 2005, but once again continued the anti-dumping duties on Febuary 27, 2007 till 28 Feb 2012. European sources have reported over the past week that indeed, European buyers of PET resin would have a wider choice of imports if the anti-dumping duties expire.

The anti-dumping rates vary from country to country and are different for specific producers. With the everchanging dynamics of the PET market in the Europe, CMT is pleased to host 13th GE (Greater Europe) PET 13th GE (Greater Europe) PET conference in Strasbourg FRANCE Strasbourg FRANCE to provide latest updates on European PET market in these challenging times .
MRC

(textination) -- The engineering company Uhde Inventa-Fischer GmbH, Berlin/Germany, has successfully commissioned a plant for the production of polyamide 6.6 for its customer Huafon Group, Ruian/China.

The production plant has a capacity of 40,000 tons/year and is located at Huafon's company headquarters in Zhejiang Province.

Uhde Inventa-Fischer's energy-efficient, resource-saving and cost-reducing PA 6.6 technology enables Huafon to produce high-quality granulate, which can be used for all applications, such as textiles, tire cord, engineering plastics and also co-polymers.

MRC