Foreign investors want to partner for "green" ethylene production - Braskem CEO

(BNAmericas) -- Brazilian petrochemical company Braskem has received proposals from four foreign companies, from the Americas, Asia and Europe, to install a sugarcane-based ethylene facility overseas, Braskem CEO Bernardo Gradin told at Triunfo petrochemical hub in Rio Grande do Sul state, where the company recently began producing "green" polyethylene (PE).

"We have received four invitations from different countries to implement the same project, which could even use Brazilian ethanol," Gradin said.

Braskem inaugurated a facility on September 24 that produces 200,000t/y of "green" ethylene, which in turn is fed into the company's PE units to generate the same quantity of the bio-resin.

The exact location of a new "green" ethylene facility is still being evaluated. Though Braskem's main ethanol suppliers are located in the southeast, installing a plant in this region could be more expensive, Gradin said.

The company plans to announce a new "green" PE project through the end of the year.

MRC

(prw) -- Plastics Capital, the niche plastics products group, has announced that it expects performance for the full year to be in line with market expectations.

According to the company, new business gains have contributed significantly to year-on-year growth, and it anticipates new business will continue to be won during the coming months.

In addition to volume growth, turnover in the first six months has been boosted as Plastics Capital has passed on higher prices for raw materials.

Faisal Rahmatallah, Plastics Capital's executive chairman, said: ⌠The recovery in the markets we serve has continued and we are winning significant levels of new business. We anticipate this trend to continue throughout the remainder of the financial year, which augurs well for bottom line performance.

The company will announce interim results for the six months ended 30 September 2010 in early December 2010.

MRC

(Plastemart) -- A week long unplanned emergency shutdown has been announced by Haldia Petrochemicals Ltd (HPL). The aim is to fix a problem in the naphtha cracker complex. This is HPL's second closure after the company increased its capacity under ⌠Project Supermax in August.

MRC

SINGAPORE (ICIS) -- Ya Plastics, a part of petrochemical giant Formosa group of companies, took a heavy beating in the equities market for the second day on Tuesday following the fire on 3 October at its synthetic paper plant in Taiwan's Chiayi county.

The latest fire, which occurred while the two successive fires in July at Formosa's Mailiao petrochemical facility were still fresh in investors' minds, has raised questions about the group's safety standards, said Jack Shieh, executive manager at the Petrochemical Industry Association of Taiwan (PIAT).

While Nan Ya admitted it would not be able to operate the damaged 48,000 tonne/year plant for at least a year, its impact on earnings was expected to be minimal, according to an analyst at an international brokerage firm. The company itself pegged its monthly income loss at New Taiwan dollars (NT$) 150m.

The restart of some plants at Mailiao that were shut during the 26 July fire risked being delayed further after the latest fire, according to Shieh.

MRC

(prw) -- South Korean plastics and chemicals giant LG Chem has bought out Dow Chemical's 50% stake in a polycarbonate-making joint venture for an undisclosed price.

Dow's half of the LG Dow Polycarbonate joint venture went over to Seoul-based LG on 1 October, according to a Bloomberg News report. The joint venture operates a pair of plants in Yeosu, South Korea, with combined annual capacity of almost 375 million pounds of PC, according to the report.

The joint venture rang up sales of $325m in 2009. It was founded in 1999 and began production in 2001, making PC under Dow's Calibre trade name.

Dow's share of the joint venture was set to transfer to private equity firm Bain Capital, which bought Dow's Styron unit ≈ including PC ≈ for $1.6bn earlier this year.

Dow's LG Dow PC stake ⌠was one of the real strong assets of the [Styron] deal because of growth prospects in Asia for automotive and electronic PC usage according to industry analyst Roger Young of Robert Eller Associates in Akron, Ohio. The sale leaves Styron without an Asian manufacturing base, Young added. Styron also has PC production in Freeport, Texas, and Stade, Germany.

MRC