Xinjiang Tianye achieves on-spec production at new PVC unit

SHANGHAI (ICIS) -- China's Xinjiang Tianye Group Co achieved on-spec production at its new 400,000 tonne/year carbide-based polyvinyl chloride (PVC) plant in China's northwestern Xinjiang province on 6 October, a company source said on Thursday.

With the start-up of the new plant, Xinjiang Tianye's PVC production capacity has increased from 700,000 tonnes/year to 1.1m tonnes/year, making it the largest PVC producer in China, according to the source.

Meanwhile, the company also achieved on-spec production at its new 300,000 tonne/year caustic soda unit in late September, said the source.

The new plant, which is also located at the same site in Xinjiang, has increased the company's caustic soda capacity from 600,000 tonnes/year to 900,000 tonnes/year, the source added.

MRC

MOSCOW (ICIS) -- Russia's major producers of polymers will go ahead with their plans to build new plants, company officials said at the Russian Polymers Summit on Thursday.

In 2012, Sibur aims to start up its new 500,000 tonne/year polypropylene (PP) facility at its Tobolsk-Neftekhim subsidiary, as well as a new 330,000 tonne/year polyvinyl chloride (PVC) plant at Kstovo, said Sergey Merzlyakov, vice president and head of Sibur's plastics and organic synthesis business unit.

Sibur is also considering building a new 200,000 tonne/year PP plant in the Nizhny Novgorod region, as well as a major gas-chemical complex in Russia's Far East to produce 1m tonnes/year of polyethylene (PE) and 720,000 tonnes/year of PP, Merzlyakov said.

The projects are expected to come on stream after 2016, he added.

Major petrochemical producer Nizhnekamskneftekhim (NKNKh) plans to build a new 400,000 tonne/year ethylene (C2) facility, said Evgeniy Tsyganov, deputy CEO of NKNKh.

The plant's PE output would reach its capacity of 230,000 tonnes/year by the end of 2011, Tsyganov said.

Russian oil major Lukoil will prioritise the development of its petrochemical arm, according to Alexander Rappoport, Lukoil's head of gas and energy coordination and sales of the petrochemical and gas products department.

By 2016, Lukoil aims to build a major gas-chemical complex in southern Russia's Stavropol region to produce up to 600,000 tonnes/year of PE and 300,000 tonnes/year of PP, Rappoport said.

The complex, designed to utilise natural gas from Lukoil's offshore gas fields in the Caspian Sea, would include a gas processing plant and new PE/PP production facilities in Budyennovsk, Stavropol region, near Lukoil's existing PE/PP plant.

Lukoil has estimated the cost at some $2.6bn.

MRC

SINGAPORE (ICIS) -- Formosa Chemicals and Fibre Corp (FCFC) is currently ramping up production at its 600,000 tonne/year styrene monomer (SM) unit in Mailiao, which was restarted last week after a scheduled maintenance shutdown, said a company source on Friday.

The unit was taken off line in late August and was initially slated to restart in late September.

The restart was pushed back to early October due to shortage of feedstock ethylene, the source said. The 700,000 tonne/year cracker - owned by FCFC parent Formosa Petrochemical - that supplies feedstock to the SM plant has been down since July.

FCFC also operates two other SM units at the site with capacities of 250,000 tonnes/year and 350,000 tonnes/year.

MRC

If Dow and ExxonMobil preserved the LLDPE supply volumes to the Russian market, decline of Sabic polyethlyne production made up 1.2 kt, it is 40% less than August supply.

The Russian LLDPE producer is traditionally Nizhnekamskneftechim. In September the company renewed the production of LLDPE thus need in import supply was decreased. The further production of LLDPE at Nizhnekamskneftechim is planned to be renewed closer to December 2010.

In this connection in October-November the growth of LLDPE import supply to the Russian market is expected.

More detailed information about PE market see in Datascope.


MRC

(prw) -- The consumption of expanded polystyrene (EPS) in the Czech Republic is expected to rise by up to 12% this year against that of 2009, according to the Czech EPS Association.

Already, the amount of EPS consumed nationally during the first eight months of 2010 has reached 39,500 tonnes representing an increase of around 20%. The organisation estimates that the full year could result in a total of 56,000 tonnes, a rise of up to 12%.

Last year saw a fall in national demand for the material of 9.3% when compared with the figure for 2008. This decline was due not only to the ill effects of the economic recession, but also because of a slow start to Czech residential building modernisation support and energy savings programmes, said association chairman Pavel Zemene.

MRC