Formosa Plastics to sell corporate bonds till the end of 2012

(Plastopedia) -- On Monday, Formosa Plastics Corp. announced that its board had approved a plan to sell up to 9 billion New Taiwan dollars (USD300 million) of unsecured corporate bonds over the rest of 2012.

The company said in a statement the maturity of the bonds would be less than 10 years and could be sold at various times. The statement said the funds would be used to expand production capacity, repay bank loans, invest in local or overseas businesses and fund operations.

Formosa Plastics Corporation is a Taiwanese company based in Taiwan that primarily produces polyvinyl chloride (PVC) resins and other intermediate plastic products.
MRC

MOSCOW (MRC) -- Federal Antimonopoly Service (FAS) of Russian Federation keeps investigating the case of cartel agreement in the PVC market. The executive department has begun interviewing clients of Russian SPVC makers, report MRC analysts.

FAS brought an action for violation of antimonopoly legislation against Russian PVC makers (PLASTKARD, KAUSTIK, SayanskKhimPlast), suspecting them in cartelization. The United Trading Company, Sibmanagement Group have also fallen under suspicion of FAS.

In August Russian converters started to receive letters from FAS with the request to answer a few questions regarding operating conditions and to provide information on purchases of PVC from these companies during the period of 2004-2006. Many converters, in their turn, do not share FAS’s opinion as regards cartel agreement in the PVC market.

SPVC market before the crisis year of 2008 was one of the most dynamically developing markets of large polymers in the Russian Federation. In the period of 2000-2008, the average annual growth of demand for suspension PVC in Russia made 24%. In 2004, Russian makers produced about 492 thousand tonnes of SPVC, in 2006 this index made about 545 thousand tonnes. Import share in 2004 amounted to about 1% and in 2006 it rose up to 18%. In their turn, on the back of high demand in the domestic market Russian makers slashed export of suspension from 121,6 thous. tonnes in 2004 to 544 tonnes in 2006.
MRC

MOSCOW (MRC) – An emergency situation was declared in the Louisiana State faced with the nearing storm Isaac. The shipments from Houston were suspended, which will worsen the ongoing delay in delivery of PVC from the U.S., as per MRC analysts.

President Barack Obama declared the state of emergency in Louisiana on approaching of tropical storm Isaac. The operation of the plants as well as shipments had been stopped because of the oncoming hurricane until August, 30. The shipment of goods in the port of Houston was also suspended.

Many market participants reported that due to the dockers' strikes in the port of Houston and delays of PVC supply from producers, the August supplies of PVC to Russia had been already disrupted on two - three weeks. This closure of the ports in the Gulf of Mexico can delay the shipments of PVC from the U.S. to Russia at least by a week.

The limited export quotas from the U.S. and strong demand from export markets have led to a serious increase in the price of the North American PVC. Price quotation of the resin for the second half of September rose to USD1,010-1,030/tonne, CFR St. Petersburg.

MRC

MOSCOW (MRC) -- A high demand for polystyrene, as well as a big number of scheduled maintenances may result in the price hike of Russian polystyrene by Rb5,000-7,000/tonne for September, as per MRC analysts.

The demand in the Russian market of polystyrene has been steadily growing since the beginning of 2012, both for the general purpose polystyrene (GPPS), and for the high impact polystyrene (HIPS). The peak of consumption fell on the second and third quarters of the year.

However, the supply of the polystyrene has tightened in the Russian market. In early July, Gazprom neftekhim Salavat stopped production of HIPS and GPPS for scheduled maintenance. The company is expected to resume the output of the material in early September 2012.

All volumes of GPPS produced by PGProf are taken by PENOPLEKS for the processing, which resulted in the nonavailability of the material during 2012.

As a result, the polystyrene by Nizhnekamskneftekhim production was the only domestic material available in the Russian market in the third quarter of 2012.

In September, Nizhnekamskneftekhim, with about 55% of consumption of HIPS and GPPS in 2012, also stops the operation of polystyrene for scheduled maintenance. According to some representatives of the maker, each production line will be stopped gradually, which will keep the production at a high level.

MRC

(Plastemart) -- Williams, olefins producer, plans to shut its 612,000 tpa steam cracker in Geismar, Louisiana, for one week in anticipation of tropical storm Isaac, which was moving west-northwestward over the eastern Gulf of Mexico and was about 255 miles south-southwest of Apalachicola, Florida, and about 300 miles southeast of the mouth of the Mississippi River. These steps were undertaken by the company as part of precautionary measures.

Other refinery shutdowns in Louisiana announced earlier in the day were by Valero, Marathon and Phillips 66, among others, as well as Enterprise Products Partners' shutdown of two NGL fractionators and one gas processing plant in the state. Other producers were monitoring the situation before deciding on the next step.
MRC