Milacron acquisition boosts extrusion aftermarket business

MOSCOW (MRC) -- Milacron LLC is boosting its extrusion services with the acquisition of American Extrusion Services Inc., of Springboro, Ohio, said Plasticsnews.

Terms of the deal were not released. "What we are looking for is to enhance the service capabilities for our customers. They have 25 years of experience, good relationships with their customers, so it really adds to our ability to serve our customers," said Dean Roberts, president of Milacron's Aftermarket division, in a conference call.
AES offers extruder rebuilds and upgrades, gearbox rebuilds and replacements, barrel alignment, feed screw and barrel measuring, replacement and rebuilding. AES President David Allison will assume a role as director of extrusion services for Milacron. His five-member staff will also remain on the job.

Roberts said the business plans to remain in Springboro and retain the American Extrusion Services name, but that it will be known as part of Milacron.

"This will expand our ability to reach out to the customers that we don't reach now," Allison added. Roberts also noted that Allison will be responsible for standardizing and growing the gearbox repair business across the different units within the Aftermarket division.

Cincinnati-based Milacron has more than 4,000 employees worldwide and operates five divisions offering plastics processing equipment and expertise, and industrial fluid technology. Its other divisions include Milacron Plastics Machinery, Mold-Masters Hot Runner and Process Control Systems, DME Mold Technologies and Cimcool Fluid Technology.

Roberts said the Aftermarket division starts when the Milacron machinery reaches the dock area. The unit handles the rigging, logistics and training to get it to customer and up and running. Then it is available for parts, rebuilding, maintenance and audits to make sure the machinery runs efficiently.

As MRC wrote before, US injection moulding machine manufacturer Milacron (Cincinnati, Ohio) has completed its acquisition of Mold-Masters (Georgetown, Ontario / Canada) for previous coverage. The USD 950m deal creates a new mega plastics processing solutions provider comprised of five businesses: Milacron Plastics Machinery (injection, extrusion and blow moulding), Mold-Masters (hot runners), DME Company (mold technologies), Aftermarket (parts and service) as well as Cimcool Fluid Technology (metalworking fluids and services). Milacron said each of the businesses would continue to focus on its area of specialty, while simultaneously leveraging the synergies among them.
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MOSCOW (MRC) -- Opec member Iran hopes to do business with major Western oil companies in the future as it looks to increase production after years of crippling sanctions, according Upstreamonline.

Speaking ahead of an Opec meeting in Vienna this week, Iran's oil minister Bijan Namdar Zanganeh told reporters that the Islamic Republic plans to meet with a number of international oil companies in London as soon as March next year.

He is hoping companies like ExxonMobil, Chevron, ConocoPhillips, Shell, Statoil and Eni will invest in Iran once international sanctions are eventually lifted. Western powers agreed to ease some sanctions in an accord last month after Iran agreed to scale down its development of a nuclear programme for six months.

Zanganeh declined to name which companies Iran would be meeting with to discuss future projects. Few of the companies he mentioned had any specific comment, other than to say they are in compliance with current US and EU laws that forbid doing business with Iran, according to reports.

Bloomberg quoted a BP spokesman as saying Iran "clearly has huge resources", but stressed that due to a "very complicated political process, we need to take our time and watch the situation carefully”.

BP is one of several companies, including Shell and Total, that have previously held partnerships in Iranian energy projects.

The accord reached last month unfreezes billions of dollars in oil revenues for Iran but keeps in place a ban on oil exports. Zanganeh said he hopes that deal is a precursor to an agreement that would ease all restriction on Iranian oil sales. Zanganeh says Iran will produce 4 million barrels per day of crude once sanctions are lifted.

Iran produced 2.65 million bpd in November. It has not produced 4 million bpd since August 2008, according to data compiled by Bloomberg. The country currently exports about 1 million bpd. Iran has oil reserves of 157 billion barrels, good for fourth largest in the world. It also holds the biggest gas reserves at around 1,187 trillion cubic feet.

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MOSCOW (MRC) -- Tianjin Bohai Chemical Industry Group has commenced the restart process at its propane dehydrogenation (PDH) unit, according to Apic-online.

A Polymerupdate source in China informed that the restart process commenced on December 3, 2013. The unit was shut on November 27, 2013 owing to technical issues.

Located in Tianjin, China, the unit has a propylene production capacity of 600,000 mt/year.

As MRC wrote before, earlier this year INEOS Nitriles and Tianjin Bohai Chemical Industry Group Corporation signed their intention to establish a 50/50 JV, to build and operate a world scale acrylonitrile plant to be located in Tianjin, China.

It is expected that the plant, which will be designed using the latest INEOS process and catalyst technology, will be completed by the end of 2016. The initial annual capacity of the new facility will be 260,000 tonnes of acrylonitrile with an expectation of possible future expansion, in line with growing demand across Asia.

Tianjin Bohai is a state owned enterprise, with over 100 subsidiaries and 35,000 employees. It has joint venture relationships with a number of foreign partners, including: LG Chem, Solvay, Akzo Nobel, Clariant, Veolia, Air Liquide and Vopak.
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MOSCOW (MRC) -- Poland's state-controlled companies Grupa Lotos SA and Grupa Azoty SA plan to build a 12 billion zloty (USD3.9 bln) petrochemical plant as part of the government's plan to strengthen national champions, as per 4-traders.

Seeking ways to give the economy a boost, the government has turned away from its pre-crisis declarations of continuing asset sales while keeping only a handful of companies it sees as strategic. It has adopted a more hands-on approach that focuses on strengthening the state companies it still has and using them to start new projects, mostly in heavy industries.

The two companies, Lotos and Azoty, signed a deal on Tuesday to conduct a feasibility study for a petrochemical plant to be located near Lotos' refinery with the chemical group Azoty the main customer.

The companies have up to PLN750 million tentatively available in financing from the government's investment vehicle, Polskie Inwestycje Rozwojowe.

Last year Prime Minister Donald Tusk said the government wants the corporate sector to increase its investment drive, making up for weak public investments in the face of public spending limits.

In order to make financing of such ventures easier, the government set up the PIR investment vehicle, which has only signed one financing deal--with the Lotos refinery.

As informed previously, the project will cost 5-6 billion zlotys (USD1.6-1.9 billion) and its construction is scheduled to begin in 2014 or 2015. The plant should be ready by 2018. The new plant would be adjacent to the Gdansk-based Lotos refinery and would use its products.

As MRC reported earlier, in November 2013, Grupa Lotos selected Axens to provide the technology license for a new Coker Naphtha Hydrotreater at its Gdansk refinery. This contract is part of the Gdansk refinery development and modernization program based on heavy residue coking technology.

Grupa LOTOS is one of the largest companies in Poland. It is an oil company operating both in Poland and abroad, whose business consists in the extraction and processing of crude oil, as well as wholesale and retail sale of high-quality petroleum products. Apart from Grupa LOTOS, which manages the refinery in Gdansk, the LOTOS Group currently comprises 15 other companies operating under the LOTOS name. One of them is based in Lithuania and another one in Norway.
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MOSCOW (MRC) -- Ineos has selected the location for a new ethane tank it plans to build at Grangemouth in Scotland, as per Reuters.

The site is set to be the first chemical plant in the country to receive shale gas from the United States.

The move will supplement declining North Sea supplies, which threatened to close the petrochemical site in October after a dispute with the Unite union.

Imports are expected to begin as early as 2016 after a GBR150 mln investment to an import terminal project.

As MRC informed earlier, in October 2012, Ineos announced it signed an agreement to secure ethane from the US that it will use as a feedstock to operate its steam crackers in Europe. It has agreed a long-term deal with Range Resources Corp. for the lifting of ethane from the Marcus Hook facility, located near Philadelphia, from 2015.

Ineos operates steam crackers in Grangemouth in the UK, Cologne in Germany, Lavera in France and Rafnes in Norway.

INEOS Group Limited is a privately owned multinational chemicals company consisting of 15 standalone business units, headquartered in Rolle, Switzerland and with its registered office in Lyndhurst, United Kingdom. It is the fourth largest chemicals company in the world measured by revenues (after BASF, Dow Chemical and LyondellBasell) and the largest privately owned company in the United Kingdom.
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