PolyOne Corp starts production at a new plant in Turkey

MOSCOW (MRC) -- PolyOne Corporation, a premier global provider of specialized polymer materials, services and solutions, has begun production at a new facility in Turkey, as per the company's statement.

The operations feature enhanced capabilities to better serve customers with an expanding portfolio of specialty polymer formulations.

The facility is located in Istanbul and provides high-level production, service and flexibility characteristics required by PolyOne's customers.

"Demand for PolyOne solutions and service in Turkey continues to increase," said Holger Kronimus, vice president of Europe, PolyOne Corporation. "These investments will further enable PolyOne's growth by providing customers a broader portfolio of offerings and even more efficient delivery times."

According to Pagev, the Turkish plastics industry association, the domestic plastics industry is growing at more than 10% per annum. "Turkey is one of the fastest growing markets for thermoplastics in the world, and the specialty polymer solutions formulated by PolyOne deliver on the needs of original equipment manufacturers and plastics processors throughout the region," added Mr. Kronimus.

As MRC informed before, in June, PolyOne completed the previously-announced sale of its vinyl dispersion, blending and suspension resin assets to Mexichem for USD250 million in cash. The sale of PolyOne's last remaining resin production assets marks an important milestone in the company's ongoing specialty transformation that began in 2006, according to top officials.

PolyOne Corporation is a global provider of specialized polymer materials, services, and solutions. PolyOne is a provider of specialized polymer materials, services and solutions with operations in specialty polymer formulations, color and additive systems, polymer distribution and specialty vinyl resins. The company's full-year revenues in 2012 increased 4.5% to USD3.0 billion, compared to USD2.9 billion in 2011.
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US shale oil output 'to peak in 2021'

MOSCOW (MRC) -- US crude oil production, rejuvenated by the advent of "fracking" shale formations, will approach historic highs by 2019, said Upstreamonline, citing the Energy Information Administration (EIA).

The US oil and gas industry has been a bright spot in recent years as the economy struggles to recover from a financial crisis and growth stagnation.

The energy renaissance has prompted some large US oil companies to sell foreign assets and come home to focus on shale, leading to a upsurge of infrastructure projects. Cheap gas, meanwhile, has reinvigorated the refining and energy-heavy industrial sectors by lowering costs.

The EIA said production in the world's largest oil consumer will rise by 800,000 barrels per day every year until 2016, when it will total 9.5 million bpd. By 2019 it will peak at 9.61 million bpd, nearly matching a 1970 record of 9.64 million bpd. In 2019, domestic production of crude oil will account for 63% of total supplies, a significant increase from 2011 when it barely covered 38% of the country's needs.

The government agency's two-million-barrel-per-day upgrade from last year's report shows how production from tightly packed shale rock has consistently confounded analysts, as higher prices and rapidly evolving technology fuel growth.

The EIA increased its forecast for shale oil production and pushed back the year of its peak. It now sees production peaking in 2021, from 2020, at 4.8 million bpd, not 2.8 million bpd.

Members of OPEC, including Saudi Arabia, are being forced to confront a trend they initially greeted with skepticism. The global oil cartel said in November it may lose 8% percent of its market share to shale in the next five years.

The EIA on Monday said OPEC's world market share would fall to below 40% in the near term but then recover after 2016. Last year it had expected OPEC's share to remain at 40-45% in the coming years.

Natural gas output will increase steadily, growing 56% between 2012 and 2040.Natural gas exports will continue to rise. The country will become a net natural gas exporter two years sooner than the EIA had previously judged, in 2018, and a net exporter of liquefied natural gas (LNG) by 2016.
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UK chemical industry threatened by US shale boom

MOSCOW (MRC) -- The US shale gas boom is reverberating across Britain’s chemical industry, the nation’s second-largest export earner, said Hydrocarbonprocessing.

The 20-billion pound (USD33 billion) chemicals business is losing sales to lower-cost competitors such as in the US, where new supplies from domestic shale drilling have reduced prices for natural gas, the fuel used in making chemicals such as plastics. By 2020, the chemicals industry in the US will be 21% larger than in Europe, from near parity now, according to the American Chemistry Council.

The price of gas, also used to make electricity, in the past month averaged about two-thirds less in the US than in Britain, the steepest discount in five years. That’s giving Americans an edge over UK chemicals makers such as Ineos Group, the largest. BASF, India’s Tata Chemicals and Lotte Chemical Corp. of South Korea shut plants in Britain this year.

The UK chemicals industry has responded by joining the oil lobby in pushing the government to clear obstacles for drilling shale rock. The threat to chemicals, among the most energy-intensive industries, shows how the widening cost gap risks inflicting further pain on a U.K. industrial sector that’s yet to recover from the financial crisis.

The UK’s Chemical Industry Association has warned the government that electricity is expected to make up 70% of costs by 2020, from as much as 60% currently, risking competitiveness, and has urged lawmakers to speed up the development of shale. The group wrote to Chancellor of the Exchequer George Osborne to “broaden and deepen” measures and to close the gap with US operators.

A study by the British Geological Survey found fields in northern England’s Bowland Basin may have enough shale gas to meet demand for almost 50 years.

While the UK government is encouraging shale drilling through lower taxes as reserves in the North Sea decline and imports rise, drilling has barely started, stymied by planning regulation and environmental pressure groups, who say exploration can contaminate water.

Ineos’s Grangemouth site in Scotland faced closure this year, after months of losses, threatening more than 800 jobs before a deal was made with workers to save the plant. The company, based in Rolle, Switzerland, will be importing ethane feedstock from the US and is building an import terminal to handle the increased flows. It will close a unit at the site by 2015 to be able to operate a newer plant at full capacity while expanding at its site in Norway.
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Total halts three French refineries amid strike

MOSCOW (MRC) -- Workers at three out of five French refineries operated by Total, the nation’s biggest oil company, voted to halt production amid industrial dispute over pay increase, reported Hydrocarbonprocessing with reference to a union official's statement.

The Feyzin refinery was in the process of shutting units after a vote yesterday, Christian Votte, a CGT union representative, said Tuesday by phone. Operations at La Mede have already stopped, while the Gonfreville site is still in the process of halting production, he said. Officials for Paris- based Total weren’t immediately available for comment after being contacted by phone and e-mail.

"If shutdowns at these French refineries do go ahead - it would take a couple more days for output to be halted completely - it could potentially provide regional margins with a boost," Vienna-based researcher JBC Energy GmbH said in an e-mailed report. "The issue has the potential to see more than 600,000 bpd of the country’s refining capacity idled."

Total’s five refineries in France, including the Donges and Granpuits facilities, have a capacity to process about 800,000 bpd of crude, or 60% of the nation’s output, according to data compiled by Bloomberg. Demand for oil products in France averaged 1.76 million bpd in the third quarter, according to data from the International Energy Agency published on 11 December.

Separately, the Donges refinery, where workers voted yesterday to end strike, was operating at a very low rate because of a "technical incident," CGT’s Votte said.

As MRC informed previously, French refinery losses may reach EUR500 million (USD689 million) this year as demand falls and profit margins are eroded by US imports, according to the country oil lobby. Workers at all five of Total’s French refineries have participated in a strike in recent days, demanding the explorer use profit from other parts of the business to pay bigger salary increases.

Total S.A. is a French multinational oil and gas company and one of the six "Supermajor" oil companies in the world with business in Europe, the United States, the Middle East and Asia. The company's petrochemical products cover two main groups: base chemicals and the consumer polymers (polyethylene, polypropylene and polystyrene) that are derived from them.
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Hyosung to build propylene plant by 2015

MOSCOW (MRC) -- Hyosung Corporation, a South Korean maker of textiles and heavy machinery, will spend 280 billion won (USD266 million) to build a propylene plant by May 2015, reported Yonhap News Agency.

The plan was launched on expectations that the recent brisk development of shale gas may send the prices of propane, a raw material for propylene, down and help Hyosung profit more from the propylene production, it said.

Hyosung plans to build the plant in Ulsan, 414 kilometers southeast of Seoul.

Once completed, the company's propylene production capacity will more than double to 500,000 tons from the current 200,000 tons.

As MRC wrote previously, in November, Hyosung Group developed high-performance thermoplastic polymers called polyketones, which will be used in various types of value-added industrial products. The firm claimed the company is the first in the world to commercialize the material, saying it is one of the greatest achievements in the materials industry, tantamount to the development of nylon by American chemical giant DuPont more than seven decades ago. Unlike many other engineering plastics, polyketones are relatively easy to synthesize and could be derived from inexpensive monomers.

Propylene is a raw material used for making auto parts, textiles and home appliances.

Hyosung Corporation is a Korean industrial conglomerate, founded in 1957. It operates in various fields, including the chemical industry, industrial machinery, IT, trade, and construction.
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