Celanese increases prices for LDPE

(Downstream Today) -- Celanese Corp., a global technology and specialty materials company and a North American leader in Ethylene Vinyl Acetate (EVA) polymers, announced Thursday that its subsidiary, Celanese EVA Performance Polymers Inc., will increase the price of all grades of Ateva EVA by $0.06/pound and all grades of LDPE by $0.05/pound effective January 1, 2011, or as contracts allow.

Celanese EVA Performance Polymers Inc. is a North American leader in developing products and application technology to improve performance, create value and drive innovation in a broad range of industrial and consumer end-use applications including flexible packaging, thermal lamination film, hot melt adhesive, USP class VI medical products and photovoltaic cells. The business has manufacturing facilities in Edmonton, Canada, and is supported by expert technical service.

MRC

(Bloomberg) -- The European Union threatened to impose tariffs on a chemical from the U.S. used in paints and paper coatings to curb import competition for Ineos Oxide Ltd.

The EU opened an inquiry into whether U.S. manufacturers of vinyl acetate sell it in the 27-nation bloc below cost, a practice known as dumping. Vinyl acetate is also used in such goods as safety glass and glues for furniture and floors.

The investigation will determine whether imports from the U.S. are ⌠being dumped and whether this dumping has caused injury to the union industry, the European Commission, the EU's trade authority in Brussels, said on Dec. 4 in the Official Journal. The commission has nine months to decide whether to impose provisional anti-dumping duties for half a year and EU governments have 15 months to decide whether to apply ⌠definitive levies for five years.

The probe stems from an Oct. 22 dumping complaint by U.K.- based Ineos Oxide, which accounts for more than a quarter of the EU's production of vinyl acetate, the commission said. The commission didn't identify any U.S. makers of vinyl acetate and Craig Welsh, an Ineos Oxide spokesman, declined to name any American manufacturers when reached today by telephone in Runcorn, the U.K.

MRC

(PSG) -- Socar Trading plans to expand its trading presence in Asia into fuel oil and naphtha next year. This would imply leasing storage capacities in Singapore.

The Azeri state-owned oil trader will also make its Singapore office fully responsible for developing its crude oil trading business in Asia, including increasing its market share, particularly via term contracts, Arzu Azimov, vice-president of trading and operations, said in an interview with Reuters.

The expansion will also see Socar Singapore arbitraging fuel oil from West to East and supplying marine fuels in the world's largest bunkering port as well as securing oil storage facilities.

The company currently trades around 200,000 tonnes of fuel oil a month, mainly in the West, but plans to increase this volume by sourcing greater quantities of the residual fuel from refineries in the Mediterranean, Azimov said.

Socar earlier made an investment to build a 650,000 cubic metre oil storage terminal in the United Arab Emirates port of Fujairah, expected to be operational in about 18 months.

MRC

(Borealis) -- Borealis, a leading provider of chemical and innovative plastics solutions, has received the Frost & Sullivan 2010 Global New Product Innovation Award in the category Automotive under the Hood Plastics. The award recognises the unique capabilities of Borealis Xmod GB306SAF polypropylene (PP) compounds, which significantly lower system and production costs for automotive system suppliers and manufacturers (OEMs).

Borealis Xmod GB306SAF is a pioneering high stiffness, 36% glass fibre reinforced engineered PP compound. It is specifically tailored for air intake manifolds (AIMs) and other technical under the hood components, exposed to high loads and peak temperatures of up to 140╟C. Vibration resistance, long-term chemical and heat resistance, combined with high fatigue and a broad operating temperature are among the material's key characteristics.

Additionally to meeting the customers need for component cost reduction, Borealis Xmod GB306SAF offers improved dimensional stability and therefore more consistent processing results compared to existing plastics solutions for AIMs.

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(Borealis) -- Borealis, a leading provider of chemical and innovative plastics solutions, announces a net profit of EUR 54 million for the third quarter of 2010. The result exceeds the performance in the third quarter of 2009 by 15%, although profitability reduced from the second quarter of 2010 largely due to the impact of start-up and turnaround activities.

The Borouge 2 project in Abu Dhabi, UAE, is well on track and the expanded plant is starting-up as planned with all olefin and polyolefin units operational by the end of the third quarter. With this investment of approximately USD 5 billion, Borouge expands its product offering into polypropylene while tripling its overall polyolefins capacity to over 2 million tonnes per year.

The Borouge 3 project is on schedule with land preparation activities adjacent to the Borouge 2 site almost completed. While still in start-up mode, the new LDPE plant in Sweden has initially demonstrated high quality output, which has been confirmed by tests with key customers. The organisation continues to work towards delivering consistent operability.

Borealis is a leading provider of chemical and innovative plastics solutions that create value for society. With sales of EUR 4.7 billion in 2009, customers in over 120 countries, and 5,200 employees worldwide, Borealis is owned 64% by the International Petroleum Investment Company (IPIC) of Abu
Dhabi and 36% by OMV, the leading energy group in the European growth belt.

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