Indorama expands in Turkey with acquisition of Artenius TurkPET

MOSCOW (MRC) -- Indorama Ventures Ltd., part of global PET giant Indorama Group, has announced it has acquired Artenius TurkPET based in Adana, Turkey, said Plasticsnews.

Artenius TurkPET had been part of insolvent Spanish company La Seda de Barcelona and produces PET resin with 130,000 metric tons of capacity.

The deal comes less than two months after Bangkok-based Indorama signed a deal to acquire 51% of SASA Polyester Sanayi AS of Istanbul. Artenius TurkPET is adjacent to SASA Polyester, which provides Indorama with a central geographic position to expand its sales into domestic and regional markets.

"Indorama leadership in the PET value chain will provide significant synergies to TurkPET in order to deliver above average returns," said CEO Aloke Lohia in a news release. "Turkey and its encompassing region is a fast-growing market and our investments in Turkey are part of a well-defined strategy to bolster our global leadership and competitive advantage. We expect to make further follow-on investments in this thriving economy of 76 million consumers to replicate what we have built in Thailand as we see a similar opportunity to fully leverage on all our products portfolios."

Indorama Ventures is a leading producer in the polyester value chain in Thailand with strong global network and manufacturing across Asia, Europe and North America. Its products serve major players in diversified end use markets, including food, beverages, personal and home care, health care, automotives, textile, and industrial. The company’s main products are PTA, PET and polyester fibre, which are distributed across the world.
MRC

LyondellBasell delays restart at La Porte, Texas, steam cracker: sources

MOSCOW (MRC) -- US olefins producer LyondellBasell has postponed the restart of its steam cracker in La Porte, Texas, by one week, reported Apic-online with reference to markets sources' statement.

The planned turnaround at the cracker with ethylene production capacity of 1.7 billion lbs/year started in late March and was to be completed by June 20. However, unforeseen issues have pushed the startup procedures to the late June, market sources said.

The turnaround also includes a planned capacity expansion - the company previously announced plans to increase La Porte's ethylene production capacity to 2.5 billion lb/year.

As MRC wrote previously, in early May 2014, LyondellBasell Industries promised the government to keep petrochemical operations near Marseille operational in the "long term" while a refinery there will be permanently shut. The petrochem major has confirmed that the closure of its refinery will not affect the viability of its petrochemical activities at the Berre and Fos sites. The company also agreed to clean up the refinery site so it can be used for other industrial and logistics businesses. The comments close another chapter in the decline of refining in France. The 105,000 barrel-a-day plant has been mothballed since January 2012 and talks with bidder Sotragem SAM ended without a deal in April 2014.

LyondellBasell Industries NV is a manufacturing company. The company produces chemicals, fuels, and polymers used for packaging, clean fuels, durable textiles, medical applications, construction materials, and automotive parts. LyondellBasell Industries operates globally and is headquartered in the Netherlands. LyondellBasell is also a leading licensor of polypropylene and polyethylene technologies. The more than 250 polyolefin process licenses granted by LyondellBasell are twice that of any other polyolefin technology licensor.
MRC

Wacker expands production capacity for dispersible polymer powders in Germany

MOSCOW (MRC) -- Wacker Chemie AG, the Munich-based chemical company, is expanding its production capacity for dispersible polymer powders in Germany, reported the company on its site.

The company is currently building a new spray dryer for dispersible polymer powders with an annual capacity of 50,000 metric tons at Wacker’s parent plant in Burghausen, Germany, investing an amount of around EUR20 million.

The facility is scheduled for completion in the first quarter of 2015 and will be one of the largest of its kind worldwide.

With the construction of a new 50,000-metric-ton spray dryer, Wacker is strengthening its position as a market and technology leader in this field.

Wacker aims to meet the globally rising demand for dispersible polymer powders, which is driven by worldwide trends such as urbanization, renovation and energy efficiency, as well as the increasing need for environmentally compatible dry-mix mortar products. With the planned production expansion, the group is creating the necessary capacity to reliably meet the market growth predicted by industry experts in the long term.

"Worldwide, demand for high-quality dispersible polymer powders is rising particularly in residential construction and infrastructure measures," explains Arno von der Eltz, president of Wacker Polymers. "We started to extend our dispersible polymer powder production at our Nanjing site at the end of last year and now want to push ahead with expanding our capacities in Burghausen, too - and thus strengthen our global position as a leading manufacturer of dispersible polymer powders."

Wacker has been producing dispersible polymer powders as binders for dry-mix mortars in Burghausen, Germany, since 1957 and, today, is a global technology and market leader in this field. VINNAPAS dispersible polymer powders find use in various construction applications such as tile adhesives, self-leveling flooring compounds, plasters, repair mortars, external thermal insulation composite systems and cementitious waterproofing membranes.

As MRC informed previously, Wacker Polymers, a unit of Munich-based specialty chemical company Wacker Chemie, has recently developed a novel dispersible polymer powder for modifying cementitious and gypsum-based dry-mix mortars. VINNAPAS 8620 E is based on a terpolymer of vinyl chloride, vinyl acetate and ethylene (EVA), and is ideal for the formulation of high-quality, low-emission tile adhesives.

Wacker Polymers is a leading producer of state-of-the-art binders and polymeric additives based on polyvinyl acetate and vinyl acetate copolymers. These take the form of dispersible polymer powders, dispersions, solid resins, and solutions. They are used in construction chemicals, paints, surface coatings, adhesives and nonwovens, and in fiber composites and polymeric materials based on renewable resources. Wacker Polymers has production sites in Germany, China, South Korea and the USA, as well as a global sales network and technical centers in all major regions.
MRC

May PP prices in Russia roll over for June

MOSCOW (MRC) -- Russian producers have maintained their May polypropylene (PP) prices for June shipments, despite last month's weaker demand for polymer and increased stocks, according to ICIS-MRC Price report.

Demand for PP subsided in May on the back of the long holidays and converters' limited working capital. A high level of capacity utilisation at Russian producers led to growing stocks amid lower sales. However, Russian producers maintained their May PP prices for June. The market balance might seriously change because of a series of scheduled outages for maintenance.

The price spread was wide enough in the raffia market. Deals for Turkmen raffia were done in the southen regions in the range of Rb63,800-64,000/tonne FCA, including VAT, FCA. Offer prices for Poliom's raffia were in Sibiria around Rb64,000/tonne FCA Omsk, including VAT, while deals for raffia in the central part of Russia were done in the range of Rb65,000-66,500/tonne CPT, including VAT.

The price dispersion was more substantial in the injection moulding homopolymer of propylene (homopolymer PP) market. Deals were done in the range of Rb67,700-70,500/tonne CPT Moscow, including VAT.

Four producers plan to shut down their production for scheduled outages for maintenance in July and September. Tobolsk-Polymer and Tomskneftekhim will shut down their production for a one-month turnaround in July, while Ufaorgsintez and Poliom will stop their operations in late August.

A Russian PP producer said increased stocks was largely a planned event and would allow producers to fulfill their contractual obligations to customers during the scheduled shutdowns.
MRC

Explosion and fire at Dutch Shell chemical plant

MOSCOW (MRC) -- A fire triggered by an explosion at a Shell chemical plant in styrene monomer (SM)/propylene oxide (PO) plant (MSPO-2) at Moerdijk in the Netherlands has been brought under control, said BBC.

Fire crews managed to extinguish the blaze in the early hours of Wednesday, officials say. Two people suffered minor burns, but the cause of the blast - heard from more than 30km (20 miles) away - remains unknown.

A spokesman for Shell told that the factory was in operation 24 hours a day but that all personnel who were on site at the time had been accounted for.

The mayor of Moerdijk, Jan Klijs, said there appeared to have been a leak of benzene, but it was not yet known whether it was methylbenzene or ethylbenzene. Local media quoted residents as saying the ground "shook like an earthquake".

The local authority announced on Wednesday morning that the fire had been extinguished. It withdrew earlier advice for people living nearby to keep windows and doors closed.

The factory makes oil-based chemicals for use in products that range from car components to insulation materials.

The Shell complex was also hit by a serious fire in 2012.

Royal Dutch Shell plc is an Anglo-Dutch multinational oil and gas company headquartered in The Hague, Netherlands and with its registered office in London, United Kingdom. It is the biggest company in the world in terms of revenue and one of the six oil and gas "supermajors". Shell is vertically integrated and is active in every area of the oil and gas industry, including exploration and production, refining, distribution and marketing, petrochemicals, power generation and trading.
MRC