Huntsman plans to shut Europe plant as pigments weaken

MOSCOW (MRC) -- Huntsman Corp., the world’s second-biggest maker of titanium dioxide pigment, is planning to close one of its European plants amid weak demand for the white colorant used in paints and plastics, said Bloomberg.

Huntsman probably doesn’t need all seven of its European plants that make titanium dioxide, known by its chemical formula TiO2, Chief Financial Officer Kimo Esplin said today in a conference webcast. The Salt Lake City-based chemical maker may spend 100 million euros (USD124 million) to close 100,000 tons of annual pigment production, he said.

Huntsman in October acquired TiO2 assets from Rockwood Holdings Inc. (ROC) with plans to separate and sell shares in the pigments business next year. The company said last week it will eliminate about 900 jobs in the unit. Pigment will be a break-even business in the fourth quarter amid weak European demand and globally lower prices, Esplin said.

"We are the guys that have the ability to take out capacity more than anyone else,” Esplin said. “We have 100,000 tons of excess capacity."

Huntsman can recover the cost of closing a European TiO2 plant in two to three years, he said.
MRC

MOSCOW (MRC) -- Chevron Lummus Global (CLG), a JV between Chevron and CB&I, announced the successful start-up of an integrated hydrocracker and base oil plant using CLG's ISOCRACKING, ISODEWAXING and ISOFINISHING technologies by Russian refiner OJSC TANECO, said Hydrocarbonprocessing.

The Russian petroleum refining industry project is being conducted under the JSC TATNEFT group of companies. The integration design of the two units offered excellent opportunity to minimize the investment, according to project officials.

The hydrocracker unit was commissioned in January 2014 and the base oil unit in December 2014. The commissioning of the two units enabled OJSC TANECO to produce 1.2 million tpy of Euro-V diesel fuel, 500,000 tpy of aviation kerosene and 190,000 tpy of Group II/III base oil.

The high-quality base oil production was possible by processing excellent quality lube oil feedstock from the hydrocracker. This premium lube oil production, according to OJSC TANECO, is unmatched by other base oil capacity in the Russian Federation and it gives OJSC TANECO competitive advantage in the base oil market.

Russian Prime Minister Dmitry Medvedev, Tatarstan President Rustam Minninikhanov and JSC TATNEFT CEO Nail Maganov attended the opening ceremony of the startup of this strategic project at OJSC TANECO oil refinery.

"As the world leading hydroprocessing technology licensor, we are thrilled to continue to hear success stories like OJSC TANECO and grateful to see our products offer competitive advantage to our clients in their market," said Leon de Bruyn, managing director at Chevron Lummus Global.

Chevron Phillips Chemical recently announced the construction of a world-scale ethylene cracker in Baytown, Texas, two world-scale polyethylene reactors in Old Ocean, Texas and the start-up of the world’s largest 1-hexene facility in Baytown. The 1-hexene plant, capable of producing up to 250,000 tpy, is co-located with this expansion project at the Cedar Bayou plant. Chevron says the two plants will enjoy synergies as they both share the same infrastructure and workforce talent.

Chevron Phillips Chemica, headquartered in The Woodlands, Texas (north of Houston), US,l is one of the world’s top producers of olefins and polyolefins and a leading supplier of aromatics, alpha olefins, styrenics, specialty chemicals, piping, and proprietary plastics. Chevron and Phillips 66 each own 50% of Chevron Phillips Chemical.
MRC

MOSCOW (MRC) -- Toray Industries, Inc. has announced that the company and its subsidiary Toray Advanced Materials Korea, Inc. would expand the production facility for high-performance polypropylene (PP) spunbond at P.T. Toray Polytech Jakarta (TPJ) by 18,000 tons per year, as per the company's press release.

After the enhancement, the production capacity of TPJ will be about 37,000 tons per year, boosting the Toray Group-wide PP spunbond production capacity to about 153,000 tons per year.

The added production facility at TPJ is expected to start operating in September 2016.

Demand for disposable baby diapers is forecast to rapidly grow in ASEAN countries with the improvement in the people’s lifestyle, as their national income increases. In addition, demand for disposable diapers for elderly is expected to expand in developed and semi-developed countries in East Asia due to the advent of declining birthrates and aging societies. Under such circumstances, demand for PP spunbond, which is the main material for making disposable diapers, is expected to grow to 660,000 tons per year in 2016 from 493,000 tons in 2013 and to 936,000 tons per year in 2020.

In response to this robust demand, Toray Group has been expanding the production capacities of its PP spunbond production bases in Korea, People’s Republic of China and Indonesia in advance.

In June 2013, TPJ’s first facility started operations, and the Group’s production base in China, Toray Polytech (Nantong) Co. will start operation of a new production line later this month.

Toray Group will enhance its PP spunbond supply structure based on the three bases in Korea, China and Indonesia and build firm relationships with global hygiene product manufacturers in order to drive forward sales expansion in emerging markets such as in rapidly growing China and ASEAN countries as well as in the growth fields.

As MRC wrote before, in summer 2012, Toray Industries in partnership with Gevo Inc. signed an offtake agreement for renewable bio-paraxylene (bioPX) produced at Gevo's planned pilot plant. The agreement will enable Toray to carry out pilot-scale production of fully renewable, bio-based polyethylene terephthalate (fully bioPET), of its fibers and films for the first time in the world.

Toray Industries is a multinational corporation headquartered in Japan that specializes in industrial products centered around technologies in organic synthetic chemistry, polymer chemistry, and biochemistry. Its founding business areas were fibers and textiles, as well as plastics and chemicals. Toray Group Malaysia companies are involved in four main businesses -- polyester fibres, textiles, plastic resins and polyester films.
MRC

MOSCOW (MRC) -- Jiangsu Yangnong Chemical is likely to shut its caustic soda plant for maintenance turnaround, reported Apic-online.

A Polymerupdate source in China informed that the plant is likely to be shut on December 27, 2014. It is likely to remain off-stream for around 12 days.

Located at Yizheng in Jiangsu province of China, the plant has a production capacity of 200,000 mt/year.

As MRC informed previously, Ineos ChlorVinyls, one of the major chlor-alkali producers in Europe, restarted a chlor-alkali plant in Belgium following an unexpected shutdown on October 22, 2014. It was shut in the second week of October 2014 owing to technical issues. Located at Tessenderlo, Belgium, the plant has a caustic soda capacity of 452,000 mt/year and chlorine capacity of 400,000 mt/year.
MRC

MOSCOW (MRC) -- A bill to increase the import duty on suspension polyvinyl chloride (SPVC) to 6.5% from 1 January 2015 has been introduced into the Ukrainian Parliament, reported MRC analysts.

On 10 December 2014, a draft law No.1335 on Amendments to the Customs Tariff of Ukraine was submitted for consideration of the Verkhovna Rada of Ukraine. This initiative provides for the separation of the commodity group -unmixed polyvinyl chloride (HS code 3904 10 00 00) into two subgroups: emulsion PVC (HS code 3904 10 00 10) and suspension PVC (HD code 3904 10 00 90). It is proposed to increase the rate of the import duty on PVC produced by the suspension method from the current zero duty to 6.5%.

The explanatory note to the bill states that the increase in the duty was due to the need to create optimal conditions in order to ensure supply of material, which is not currently produced in the country, for domestic producers of construction and other industries, as well as the need for harmonization of the Ukrainian legislation with the standards adopted in international practice.

The settlement of rates of the import duty on polyvinyl chloride (PVC) will create the same competitive conditions for both domestic and foreign producers, which corresponds to the fundamentals of a market economy.

Ukraine has SPVC production capacities at Karpatneftekhim (LUKOIL). The plant's annual production capacity is 300,000 tonnes of PVC. The production was launched in May 2011. However, the plant was shut down several times because of economic inefficiency, it was last shut down in December 2013.

As reported earlier, in 2012, Karpatneftekhim initiated an anti-dumping investigation regarding PVC imports from the US. The Commission has still not come to a definite conclusion.

According to MRC data, the overall SPVC imports to Ukraine totalled just over 101,000 tonnes over the first ten months of 2014, down by 15% year on year.
MRC