Petrobras inks deal to supply Toyota Tsusho Corp. hydrated ethanol

(Plastemart) -- Petrobras has signed a contract estimated at US$820 mln to supply Toyota Tsusho Corp. (TTC) hydrated ethanol for ten years. The delivery will be of 143,000 cubic meters per year to be used as feedstock in a chemical ethanol project that TTC is deploying with a local partner in Taiwan to produce Bio-PET.

This is the first long-term ethanol supply contract Petrobras signs. Petrobras Biocombustivel will be responsible for providing the contractual volume through a contract with Petrobras.

MRC

(Plastemart) -- South Korea's Honam Petrochemical Corp. has completed the acquisition of Malaysia's Titan Chemicals Corp. Bhd. The acquisition was announced by Honam, South Korea's second largest ethylene maker on July 16.

The deal involved buying a 73% stake in Titan from the Chao Group and a Malaysian state-run fund. Honam's plans include acquisition of Titan shares from the market to gets its stake holding to 100%. The total cost of the acquisition is expected to be Won 1.5 trillion (US$1.28 bln).

Titan is Malaysia's premier and largest integrated olefins and polyolefins producer. It has a capacity to make 1.2 million of olefins, 1.5 million mt of polyolefins, 0.2 million mt of aromatics, 0.1 million mt of butadiene and 38,000 mt of BOPP film through facilities and plants located in Malaysia and Indonesia.

MRC

(Plasticsnews) -- Commercial Plastics Recycling Inc. is expanding its Tampa, Fla., headquarters by nearly 20 percent, to 62,000 square feet, in part to house a large, new pipe shredder it just bought from Germany's Zerma Zerkleinerungsmaschinenbau GmbH.

The ZRS1500-model shredder can handle plastic pipe up to 48 inches in diameter, according to CPR President Ben Benvenuti. The shredder can accept lengths of pipe up to 25 feet long, which also makes for safer handling, since one doesn't need to be using chain saws and the like to chop up pipe into smaller pieces.

Once installed, CPR's Tampa plant will be one of the largest pipe-shredding facilities in the United States, and it will double the amount of PVC and polyethylene pipe that CPR processes.

The 14-year-old company, which also operates recycling facilities in Millwood, W.Va., and Newton, N.C., as well as a sales office in Little Falls, N.J., noted that demand for recycled plastics from pipe has been growing. Additionally, many suppliers of used pipe have been looking for ways to recycle rather than landfill the material.

MRC

(Plasticsnews) -- Biopolymer compounds for durable applications and step-saving antifog additives for polypropylene film were among several innovative materials offered by compounding leader PolyOne Corp. at K 2010.

ReSound-brand biopolymer compounds have at least 30 percent bio-derived compound by weight, and can help durable product makers reduce the environmental impact of their products, according to officials with Avon Lake, Ohio-based PolyOne.

OnCap-brand antifog additives for PP film allows packaging film to resist the formation of moisture droplets - or ⌠fog - on the surface that touches the food product. The new additives also don't need corona treatment or coating, which saves both time and energy, officials said. OnCap antifog additives are available as masterbatch concentrates or as components of PolyOne specialty compounds.

MRC

(Plasticsnews) -- German blow molding machinery maker Bekum launched its first all-electric blow molding machine at the K fair, targeting high efficiency packaging production.

Bekum technical director Karlheinz Moser said a key benefit of the new clamp arrangement is that it separates clamping actions from alignment control, allowing it to achieve platen parallelism of less than 0.1mm over the full stroke.

The machine also uses a new hybrid drive technology developed by Bosch Rexroth, for which Bekum has exclusive access in blow molding applications for five years. This all-electric system combines ball screw high speed movement with a hydrostatic clamp.

Bekum expects the new machine to help it increase sales next year. Sales director Andreas Mehnart said the company sold equipment to the value of 55 million in 2009 and is on course for a 10 percent increase this year.

MRC