Nova Chemicals commissions new semi-commercial nine-layer blown film co-extrusion line

MOSCOW (MRC) -- Nova Chemicals Corporation has announced its new state-of-the-art Brampton Engineering nine-layer blown film co-extrusion line is now fully commissioned and in operation at the Centre for Performance Applications in Calgary, as per the company's press release.

This investment is a cornerstone of a broader set of purchases and upgrades at the company’s Calgary research and development facilities. Together, these investments greatly enhance NOVA Chemicals’ ability to work collaboratively with customers to bring well-designed, better-performing products to market more quickly.

The semi-commercial scale line permits in-house production of complex multi-layer films to optimize coextruded film structures and determine which polyethylene (PE) and other materials perform best. Along with the Centre’s experts, these capabilities enable customers’ success through collaborative idea generation and faster speed to market for new products and applications. In addition, they reduce customers’ production line interruptions through off-line application development.

"Nova Chemicals is the first PE resin producer in North America to have a nine-layer line," said Technical Services Manager Sarah Marshall, NOVA Chemicals Technology. "This investment provides a tremendous opportunity to collaborate with our customers and quickly generate new ideas and applications utilizing our resins to help them succeed. It helps deliver on our commitment to expand our innovation capabilities and provide greater value to our customers."

The line is capable of running several different complex film structures per day with precise layer distribution and converter-quality film rolls. Films produced on the line will support NOVA Chemicals’ expanded applications development work for the food packaging, heavy duty sack and other flexible packaging markets.

As MRC wrote previously, in March 2015, Nova Chemicals announced the commercialization of SURPASS HPs667-AB polyethylene resin, reflecting the company’s commitment to deliver greater value to its customers through the development of high-performance products. This new resin is a result of the customer-centric research and development work at the company’s Centre for Applied Research and Centre for Performance Applications in Calgary.

Nova Chemical is one of the largest world's petrochemical companies, a manufacturer of polyethylene, styrene polymers, monomers, and many other related products.
MRC

MOSCOW (MRC) -- Reliance Industries Ltd (RIL) has announced that it plans to shut down one of its crude distillation unit at the Jamnagar refinery in Gujarat for routine maintenance activities in July 2015, said Business-standard.

“The SEZ unit of Jamnagar refinery of Reliance Industries Limited is planning to shut down one crude distillation unit for routine maintenance and inspection activities in the first half of July for about 10 days,” said Reliance Industries in a BSE filing.

The company also plans to carry out necessary modifications during these maintenance drills to improve the reliability and performance of the unit.

“The other three crude distillation units including major secondary processing units are planned to operate at normal throughput. The planned maintenance turnaround at the refinery is not expected to have any impact on commercial commitments,” added RIL.

As MRC informed previously, Reliance Industries is implementing a new project to source 1.5 million tpy of ethane feedstock from the US to feed its crackers in India. Besides, RIL has announced that it would invest over Rs 100,000 crore in expansion of its petrochemical capacities and adding value to its refining business.

Reliance Industries is one of the world's largest producers of polymers. The company's polymer production in 2010-11 (polypropylene, polyethylene and polyvinyl chloride) made 4,094 kilo tonnes.

MRC

MOSCOW (MRC) -- Junzheng Chemical is in plans to restart its polycinyl chloride (PVC) plant following maintenance turnaround, as per Apic-online.

A Polymerupdate source in China informed that the plant is likely to be restarted in mid-July 2015. It was shut in mid-June2015.

Located at Wuhai in Inner Mongolia, the plant has a production capacity of 320,000 mt/year.

As MRC wrote previously, Shandong Dongyue restarted its PVC plant in early March 2015, following maintenance turnaround. It was shut on February 6, 2015. Located in Shandong province, China, the plant has a production capacity of 120,000 mt/year.

Besides, Henan Shenma Chlorine Alkali is not in plans to undertake a maintenance turnaround at its PVC plant in 2015. The plant is likely to undergo a maintenance turnaround in 2016, though a specific schedule for the same has not been worked out. Located at Henan in China, the plant has a production capacity of 450,000 mt/year.
MRC

MOSCOW (MRC) -- Arkema, through its subsidiary CECA (an adsorption and filtration specialist), has announced a project to double production capacity for its specialty molecular sieves to support its customers’ growth, in particular in the refining and petrochemicals sector of Asia and the Middle East, said the company in its press release.

Arkema will invest about Euro 60 million to expand the Honfleur site in France dedicated to molecular sieves. It is designed to produce adsorbents for aromatics separation in petrochemicals, in particular the latest generation ultra high performance CECA molecular sieves - Siliporite SPX 5003 - already produced industrially and marketed throughout the world. Production is scheduled to come on stream in two phases, the first in summer 2016 and the second in early 2017.

“Boosting CECA’s production capacity for specialty molecular sieves will enable us to support the growth of the market, of the order of 6 to 7%, especially in Asia and the Middle East, and in particular to serve our petrochemicals customers targeting end-markets such as synthetic textiles and PET bottles,” explained Marc-Antoine Mallet, managing director, CECA.

This latest investment provides Arkema with a further growth engine to drive its long-term ambition. It enables both Arkema and its subsidiary CECA to demonstrate their know-how in providing their customers with innovative solutions for the oil and gas growth markets. The investment also consolidates the IFP Energies nouvelles, Axens, CECA cluster of excellence in France in the field of petrochemicals and in particular xylene separation.

As MRC informed earlier, Arkema inaugurated the thiochemicals plant, which successfully came on stream in Kerteh, Malaysia, beginning of 2015, but was officially inaugurated on 4 June 2015.

Arkema with annual revenue of EUR6.7 billion is a leading European supplier of chlorochemicals and PVC. Kynar and Kynar Flex are registered trademarks of Arkema Inc. Arkema operates 11 organic peroxide plants on the three continents.

MRC

MOSCOW (MRC) -- The overall exports of polypropylene (PP) from Russia exceeded 168,100 tonnes over the first five months of 2015, up by 116% year on year. China, Turkey and Belarus are the key PP consumers, according to MRC ScanPlast report.

March accounted for peak export PP sales, which totalled 55,800 tonnes; slightly over 22,100 tonnes were shipped to foreign markets (26,400 tonnes in April). Thus, Russian producers managed to raise export sales of propylene polymers from January to May 2015 to 168,100 tonnes due to a significant increase in production from 77,900 tonnes a year earlier. China, Turkey and Belarus accounted for the largest exports, which was more than 60%.

Tobolsk-Polymer, Poliom and Stavrolen with the share of 48%, 24% and 7%, respectively, of the total exports are the key exporters of propylene polymers. It is also worth noting a significant growth of export sales by Ufaorgsintez this year -over 6,000 tonnes in the stated period.

The geography of Russian PP exports is quite extensive. European countries (Belgium, Poland, Serbia, Lithuania), as well as Brazil and India, should be mentioned except for the top three countries.

If the exports structure is considered, propylene homopolymers (homopolymer PP) accounted for more than 94% of the total exports, whereas block copolymers of propylene (PP-block) accounted for about 5% and statistical copolymers of propylene (PP-random) accounted for only 1%.

MRC