ARLANXEO develops new rubber compound for self-sealing tires

MOSCOW (MRC) -- ARLANXEO, a leading global manufacturer of synthetic elastomers, has developed a rubber compound that can be used in the future to seal tires, as per the company's press release.

This solution for so-called self-sealing tires replaces the spare wheel and also presents an alternative to a repair kit or run-flat tire. An appropriate rubber compound from ARLANXEO, which is applied on the interior of the vehicle tire, enables holes occurring in the tire to be automatically sealed, so the driver can continue driving.

"With our development, we are giving an important impulse for the mobility of tomorrow," says Frank Luckgen, Global Marketing Director Tire in the Business Unit Tire & Specialty Rubbers (BU TSR) at ARLANXEO. "As a spare tire and the corresponding tools are no longer required, the weight of the vehicle and subsequently also its energy consumption are further reduced. In the case of electric vehicles, this can result in a longer range, for example," explains Luckgen.

The compound developed by ARLANXEO is applied on the interior of the tire. If, for example, a nail or other sharp object causes a hole in a tire, the rubber compound can seal the defect automatically. The tire is sealed immediately, regardless of the location and environment, while the car is moving.

"To ensure that our compound can guarantee optimal sealing in any climate zone regardless of the speed a vehicle is traveling, we are currently carrying out further tests under extreme conditions following successful laboratory tests," says Matthias Gotta, Head of Global Sales and Marketing in BU TSR. "Even in the case of strongly fluctuating external temperatures, the tires should be sealed in the same quality."

ARLANXEO conducts the corresponding tests with various partners under real-life conditions. Once the tests have been successfully completed, the compound will be launched on the market in the course of 2018.

As MRC wrote before, in January 2018, ARLANXEO announced that it is expanding its global chloroprene rubber (CR) production at the site in Dormagen, Germany. The production capacity there will be increased to as much as 70,000 tons per year overall that will be available to the market already during the first quarter of 2019. ARLANXEO is investing an upper single-digit million in the expansion project overall.

ARLANXEO was established in April 2016 as a joint venture of Lanxess - a world-leading specialty chemicals company based in Cologne, Germany - and Saudi Aramco - a major global energy and chemicals enterprise headquartered in Dhahran, Saudi Arabia. The two partners each hold a 50-percent interest in the joint venture. The business operations of ARLANXEO are assigned to the High Performance Elastomers and Tire & Specialty Rubbers business units.
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Westlake Chemical to expand chlor-alkali, PVC and VCM capacities in Germany and Louisiana

MOSCOW (MRC) -- Westlake Chemical Corporation has announced that it will expand capacities for the production of polyvinyl chloride (PVC) and vinyl chloride monomer (VCM) at three of its chemical facilities, as per the company's press release.

Two of the plants are located in Germany (Burghausen, Gendorf) and one is located in Geismar, Louisiana. The expansions in Burghausen and Geismar are expected to be completed in 2019. The Gendorf expansions are expected to be completed in 2020 and 2021.

The expansion projects are expected to add approximately 750 million pounds annually of additional PVC and approximately 200 million pounds annually of additional VCM to the company’s production. Specialty PVC will be expanded at Burghausen and suspension PVC will be expanded at Geismar. VCM production will be expanded at Geismar and Gendorf. In addition, chlor-alkali production will be expanded at the Gendorf facility, adding approximately 55 million pounds annually of chlorine capacity and the associated 60 million pounds annually of membrane caustic soda capacity.

"The chlor-alkali, PVC and VCM capacity expansions in Germany will be our first since we completed the acquisition of our Vinnolit subsidiary in 2014," said Westlake Chemical President and CEO Albert Chao. "These PVC and VCM expansions support our integrated vinyl products chain and demonstrate Westlake’s commitment to provide our global customers with additional production to meet their growing needs."

As MRC informed before, in mid-July 2016, US petrochemical producer Westlake Chemical restarted its Petro-1 steam cracker in Lake Charles, Louisiana. The startup talk was on the tail end of an 80-day planned outage that started on April 19. The turnaround also included a capacity expansion of 113,000 mtpa. The company operates two steam crackers at the site - Petro-1, with current ethylene capacity of 567,000 m tpa, and Petro-2, with 886,000 m tpa.

Westlake Chemical Corporation is an international manufacturer and supplier of petrochemicals, polymers and building products with headquarters in Houston, Texas. The company's range of products includes: ethylene, polyethylene, styrene, propylene, chlor-alkali and derivative products, PVC suspension and specialty resins, PVC Compounds, and PVC building products including siding, pipe, fittings and specialty components, windows, fence, deck and film.
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Suhar refinery in Oman is complete

MOSCOW (MRC) -- Colleagues working on the Suhar Refinery Improvement Project (SRIP) in Oman were delighted to represent Petrofac at a milestone event to celebrate the completion of the Suhar Refinery facility, as per Hydrocarbonprocessing.

The ceremony marked the completion of the project’s overall performance test on 30 December 2017.

Around 400 people attended the event, including Ahmed Saleh Al-Jahdhami, CEO of Orpic, and Christiaan van der Wouden, COO – both of whom presented a number of awards in recognition of outstanding contribution.

Petrofac’s Project Director, Srikanth Nagaraj, was thrilled to be presented with an "Outstanding Achievement" award from Ahmed Saleh Al- Jahdhami, CEO of Orpic. He said: "This is a very proud moment marking the signing of the overall Performance test. The event has been a wonderful opportunity to get together with some of the key partners who have worked so closely since we were awarded the contract in 2013."

Located 230 km north west of Muscat, Petrofac’s scope in delivering the project encompassed engineering, procurement, construction, start-up and commissioning services. The contract included building a state of the art refinery and as well as improvements at the existing Refinery.

Now complete, it is anticipated that the facility will increase previous output by more than 70%.

The project’s safety performance was exemplary, achieving more than 53 million man-hours without a lost time incident. The creation of In-Country Value (ICV) was a guiding principle throughout, involving the training and development of Omani nationals and the support of local supply chains.
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Andeavor to run refineries up to 96 pct combined capacity in Q1

MOSCOW (MRC) -- Independent refiner Andeavor said on Friday it plans to run its 10 U.S. refineries up to 96 percent of their combined capacity of 1.1 million barrels per day (bpd) in the first quarter of 2018, as per Hydrocarbonprocessing.

The company also said during a conference call with Wall Street analysts that its refineries ran at 97 percent of their combined crude oil throughput capacity in the fourth quarter of 2017. For all of 2017, the refineries operated at 95 percent of combined throughput.

Andeavor Chairman and Chief Executive Officer Gregory Goff said the company has a heavy overhaul schedule for 2018. "We are in the final stages of completing a turnaround at Los Angeles that we started some time ago, and we are doing a turnaround at Martinez," Goff said. "So we have a very heavy turnaround year but everything is going well."

Andeavor is integrating refineries into a single plant in Carson and Wilmington, California, adjacent industrial suburbs of Los Angeles. The 269,200 bpd Carson refinery and the 94,900 bpd Wilmington refinery adjoin each other.

Andeavor Chief Financial Officer Steven Sterin said the heavy schedule for refinery maintenance would continue into 2019, in part to prepare for a change in marine fuel formulation to lower sulfur content from 3.5 percent to 0.5 percent. "We are managing our turnarounds to have very, very little turnarounds in 2020," Sterin said. "So our '18 and '19 plans include preparation for being able to supply the needs of the market in 2020 for the diesel fuel that we expect to produce."

Goff said Andeavor sees no alternative to its stymied proposal to build a rail-to-marine crude oil terminal that would transfer 11 million barrels of oil a month from trains to tankers at the Port of Vancouver, Washington. Governor Jay Inslee, a Democrat, on Jan. 31 approved a state board's recommendation denying Andeavor a permit to build the Vancouver Energy Center.

"We continue to scour all ideas and all that but we don't have any immediate plans to do anything differently," Goff said. "The Vancouver Energy project was very attractive primarily because it allows you to take crude produced in the United States with a lower carbon intensity of other crudes that are run by the industry on the West Coast and run those crudes and basically improve the environmental footprint of the fuels that we supply on the West Coast," he said.

In December, Washington Energy Facility Site Evaluation Council unanimously recommended denying Andeavor and partner Savage Cos a permit to build the $210 million center, citing risk of injury to workers and damage to the environment if the center went into operation. Andeavor took a $40 million asset impairment charge in the fourth quarter related to the project.
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Akzo Nobel commissions new powder coatings facility near Mumbai

MOSCOW (MRC) -- India’s fourth largest paint company, Akzo Nobel India Limited commissioned its new powder coatings facility at Thane (near Mumbai, Maharashtra), as per Indiainfoline.

The company invested Rs65cr in the facility and the same was inaugurated by CEO Thierry Vanlancker. Akzo announced this to the stock exchanges on February 15, 2018.

The powder coatings facility in Thane is intended to boost Akzo’s access to markets in North and West India. It will complement the existing plant in Bengaluru (Karnataka) and will have additional lines in bond metallic powder and pipe and re-bar coatings.

A majority of the company’s revenues comes from industrial coatings while the remainder is from decorative paints. Within decorative coatings, it has the famous “Dulux” brand. Within industrial coatings, it has marine coatings, powder coatings, metal coatings, vehicle refinish and specialty coatings in its product portfolio. The recent quarterly results (Q3FY18) clearly reflected pressure on operating margins of ANIL due to input cost inflation and volatile exchange rate. Future safeguarding of operating margins will require the company to take price hikes. Given the improving demand environment, we feel that this should not be very difficult. Economic revival and focus on housing segment will bring volume growth back to double digit levels in Q4FY18.

Akzo Nobel India Ltd is currently trading at Rs1,805, up by Rs1.75 or 0.1% from its previous closing of Rs1,803.25 on the BSE.

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