EconCore taps Meaf extruder for rPET honeycomb sandwich panels

MOSCOW (MRC) -- Belgian manufacturer of honeycomb structures EconCore has selected Meaf machinery for its trial production of recycled PET (rPET) ThermHex honeycomb sandwich panels, said Plasticsnewseurope.

The company is using the high speed, energy efficient Meaf 50-H34 extruder to produce the honeycomb core, which consists of 95% recycled post-consumer PET, Meaf announced 20 Aug.

EconCore’s thermoplastic honeycomb technology enables the production of honeycomb panels in a continuous and in-line integrated process. During the successive production steps polymers are extruded, vacuum formed and folded into a honeycomb core.

Further process integration has been achieved with the direct in-line lamination of skin layers onto the honeycomb cores, allowing for the one-shot production of sandwich panels or parts.

“We want to bring a smart, innovative and sustainable product to market that contributes towards the circular economy of plastics,” said Wouter Winant, technical manager at EconCore.

The rPET core offers high stiffness and strength in compression and shear, high temperature stability and has an excellent weight to cost ratio, according to Winant.

In addition, the Meaf 50-H34 flat die extruder offers a cost-effective and highly efficient production process, Winant said.

The Meaf H-series sheet extrusion lines are designed to have higher output at lower melt temperatures and RPM and reduce energy consumption by at least 50% compared to competitor brands in the market.

The extrusion lines are suited for both single and multi-layer extrusion applications and can produce up to eight layers, using a range of materials including PP, PS, HIPS, PET, PE, PA, PLA, TPE, EVOH barrier and others, according to Ardjan Houtekamer, technical director at Meaf.

The extrusion technology will also feature prominently on the Meaf stand at K2019, to be held 16-23 Oct, in Dusseldorf, Germany.
MRC

MOSCOW (MRC) -- Pengerang Refining and Petrochemical (PrefChem), a joint venture between Petronas and Saudi Aramco, has begun to restart a crude distillation unit (CDU) at its oil refinery in Malaysia, reported Reuters with reference to Petronas' statement.

Malaysia’s state oil firm said the refinery had started feeding crude oil into the unit earlier this week, confirming an earlier Reuters report citing sources.

"We confirm that the refinery has started feeding crude to its CDU earlier this week in efforts to restart the plant," Petronas told Reuters over email.

The Pengerang Refining development, part of Petronas’ USD27 billion Pengerang Integrated Complex, consists of a 300,000 barrels-per-day (bpd) oil refinery and a petrochemical complex with a production capacity of 7.7 million tonnes per year in the southern Malaysian state of Johor.

The project, originally known as RAPID, or Refinery and Petrochemical Integrated Development, was shut in April after a fire damaged its atmospheric residue desulfurization (ARDS) unit.

It had been scheduled to restart last month but that was pushed back to August, they said.

Repairs at the ARDS unit were expected to take months so the refinery has modified the type of crude it processes to low-sulfur oil such as Murban crude from Abu Dhabi, the sources said.

Petronas said the ARDS is scheduled to come back online in 2020.

The refinery’s strong demand for Murban crude saw Malaysia’s imports of the oil jump to about 4.6 million barrels in June and July, Refinitiv data showed.

As MRC wrote previously, Petronas is in plans to take its low density polyethylene (LDPE) plant off-stream for a brief maintenance. The company is likely to start turnaround at its plant in end-August, 2019. The plant is slated to remain off-line for around end-September, 2019. Located at Kerteh in Terrenganu, Malaysia, LDPE plant has a production capacity of 255,000 mt/year.

Petronas, short for Petroliam Nasional Berhad, is a Malaysian oil and gas company wholly owned by the Government of Malaysia. The Group is engaged in a wide spectrum of petroleum activities, including upstream exploration and production of oil and gas to downstream oil refining; marketing and distribution of petroleum products; trading; gas processing and liquefaction; gas transmission pipeline network operations; marketing of liquefied natural gas; petrochemical manufacturing and marketing; shipping; automotive engineering; and property investment.
MRC

MOSCOW (MRC) -- In a major compounding deal, PolyOne is selling its Performance Products & Solutions unit to SK Capital Partners for USD775m (EUR700m) in cash, said the company.

PP&S posted sales of almost USD700m (EUR632m) last year, representing about 20% of total sales for Avon Lake, Ohio-based PolyOne.

The unit also make polypropylene-based compounds and provides contract manufacturing. It sells mainly into North American construction and automotive end markets.

SK is a New York-based private equity firm. It has become a major player in plastic additives through its acquisitions of part of Chemtura in 2013 and of SI Group last year. SK had operated the Chemura businesses as Addivant. The combined additives firm operates as SI Group.

In a news release, PolyOne CEO Robert Patterson said that his firm “conducted what became a very competitive bidding process for our PP&S segment.”

He added that “Ultimately, we determined that divesting the business to SK Capital Partners would provide greater flexibility to accelerate our specialty growth strategy and is in the best interest of customers, employees and shareholders.”

After the sale, Patterson said that PolyOne “can further refine our focus on investing in and growing our three remaining segments: speciality engineered materials; colour, additives, and inks; and distribution.”

Jack Norris, a managing director of SK Capital, said: “PP&S is a market leader with a rich heritage in the PVC and polypropylene compounding industry. We are excited about the opportunity to further strengthen the business through both growth and improvement initiatives, similar to how we’ve approached several other investments that were corporate carveouts.”

The deal is scheduled to close in the fourth quarter of 2019.

In 2018, sales at PP&S were up more than 2%, but the unit’s operating profit declined by more than 4%. PP&S operates 13 manufacturing sites — nine in the US, two in Canada and single sites in Mexico and China.

The PP&S business includes Geon-brand PVC compounds, which are one of PolyOne’s oldest legacy businesses. The materials first were made by rubber supplier BF Goodrich, which launched production of PVC resin and related compounds and end products in the 1920s before it began selling the materials to outside customers in the 1940s.

Goodrich spun off Geon as a separate business in 1993, with the firm later divesting its PVC resin business. Geon then merged with Cleveland-based MA Hanna Co. — a longtime mining firm that had transitioned into plastics — in 2000 to form PolyOne.

PolyOne expects to record a pretax gain of approximately $600m (€541m) at the time the sale is completed. Patterson said that, in the short term, proceeds from the sale will be used to pay down debt on PolyOne’s revolving line of credit and to reduce its overall net debt.

In 2018, PolyOne had sales of about USD3.5bn (EUR3.1bn). The firm employs almost 6,900 worldwide.
MRC

MOSCOW (MRC) -- Arkema has announced a project to acquire Lambson, a company specializing in photoinitiators for curing, a technology meeting the demands of cutting-edge markets such as electronics, 3D printing, digital ink, composites and high performance coatings, said the producer on its site.

These solutions will complement the offering of Sartomer, a global leader in photocure resins, while helping speed up its development in this fast-growing market. This deal will further strengthen the share of specialties in Arkema’s product portfolio, in line with its long-term ambition.

Lambson develops and markets a wide range of photoinitiators for curing, a market with growth estimated at around 5% per year. The company, historically based in the United Kingdom, reports sales of some EUR45 million.

These photoinitiators, used to initiate polymerization reactions during the UV-curing process, perfectly complement Sartomer’s resin range.

The development of this integrated offering will enable Sartomer to better meet its customers’ challenges, in particular in the electronics, 3D printing, digital ink, composites and high performance coatings markets.

Closing of the deal is expected in fourth quarter 2019, subject to approval by the antitrust authorities in the relevant countries.

As MRC informed before, in July 2019, Arkema reached another milestone in its journey of growth in specialties with the planned acquisition of ArrMaz.

Arkema is a leading European supplier of chlorochemicals and PVC. Kynar and Kynar Flex are registered trademarks of Arkema Inc.
MRC

MOSCOW (MRC) -- Overall production of polyvinyl chloride (PVC) exceeded 553,700 tonnes in the first seven months of 2019, up by 0.3% year on year. At the same time, not all Russian producers raised their output of HDPE, according to MRC's ScanPlast report.

July production of unmixed PVC was 51,200 tonnes against 79,600 tonnes a month earlier, the decrease in production was a result of a scheduled maintenance works at SayanskKhimPlast and Bashkir Soda Company. Overall PVC production exceeded 553,700 tonnes in January-July 2019, compared to 551,800 tonnes a year earlier. The increase in output from RusVinyl and SayanskKhimPlast did not allow to compensate for the decrease in output from the other two producers.

The structure of PVC production by plants looked the following way over the stated period.

RusVinyl (JV of SIBUR and SolVin) produced 29,500 tonnes of PVC in July, with emulsion polyvinyl chloride (EPVC) accounting for 2,500 tonnes, compared to 26,100 tonnes a month earlier. RusVinyl's overall PVC production reached 196,200 tonnes in January-July 2019, up by 7% year on year. Such a significant increase in production was a result of the absence of long maintenance works.

Last month, Sayanskkhimplast produced 3,900 tonnes of suspension PVC (SPVC), while in June this figure amounted to 26,800 tonnes; the company stopped its facilities for monthly scheduled maintenances from 5 July. The Sayansk plant managed to produce about 166,300 tonnes of resin in January-July, compared to 162,800 tonnes a year earlier.

Bashkir Soda Company in July produced 10,700 tonnes compared to 22,400 tonnes a month earlier; the plant shut PVC production capacities two-week turnaround in June. Baskhir Soda Company's overall SPVC production reached 148,000 tonnes in January-July 2019, compared to 151,000 tonnes a year earlier.

Kaustik (Volgograd) produced 7,200 tonnes of SPVC last month, whereas this figure was 4,300 tonnes in June. Kaustik's overall production of PVC reached 43,200 tonnes in the first seven months of 2019 versus 54,500 tonnes a year earlier.


MRC