Sinopec expands oil refining capacity to 5 mln tons a year

(Bloomberg) -- China Petroleum & Chemical Corp., the nation's biggest oil refiner, has raised its Tahe plant's processing capacity to 5 million metric tons a year.

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TAIPEI (Reuters) -- The largest of state-owned CPC Corp Taiwan's three naphtha crackers should resume full operations within a few weeks after shutting down because of a typhoon, a company executive said on Tuesday.

The company is taking apart its No.5 cracker in southern Taiwan to check for problems following a typhoon that caused an outage on Sunday.

The cracker with a nameplate capacity of 450,000 tonnes per year (tpy) did not appear to be flooded despite high water and heavy rains elsewhere in southern Taiwan, he said.

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(PackagingNews) -- Plastic packaging specialist Nampak is looking to trial milk bottles with 30% recycled content after a university study found that 50% recycled content was a feasible target for HDPE milk bottles.

Using post consumer food grade rHDPE pellets, the experimental work assessed the properties of blends of virgin HDPE with between 10% and 50% rHDPE, and also quantified the effects on material properties of five thermal cycles through an extruder.

The researchers concluded that the recyclate grades studied had very similar properties - including flow behaviour, quality and molecular and chemical structure - to the virgin materials.

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(DuPont) -- Tim McCann, vice president - Performance Coatings, Americas, was appointed president, DuPont Building Innovations effective Oct. 1. Tim will report to Mark Vergnano, executive vice president.

Tim joined DuPont in 1980 as a technical representative for DuPont Permasep and has worked in a number of businesses since then, including DuPont Engineering Polymers and DuPont Fluoropolymers. In 2005, he was named vice president and general manager of DuPont Electronic Technologies. He was appointed to his current position in Oct. 2009.

"Tim will be responsible for implementing and executing the updated strategy for the Building Innovations business and leading the global team, Mark said. "Tim brings demonstrated business experience, strong people and organization skills, and a great mix of strategic and execution disciplines to the role.

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(prw) -- Ticona Engineering Polymers has added a new member to its series of flame-resistant liquid crystal polymers (LCP). Vectra Trex is designed for thermal forming processes and is claimed to be the first LCP tailored for these applications, while offering the same properties as other Vectra materials: high dimensional stability, ⌠excellent high-temperature performance and chemical resistance.

"With high melt viscosity and melt strength, this new LCP is ideally suited for extrusion and thermoforming processes," said Edward Hallahan, marketing manager, high-performance polymers. "Initially, Ticona is offering a 40% mineral filled grade, Vectra Trex 541, which provides impact and notched impact strengths significantly higher than those of other mineral-filled grades."

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