MOSCOW (MRC) -- Germany's chemical industry association VCI (Frankfurt) says that innovation rather than product bans should be the focus of the new EU chemicals strategy, which the European Commission intends to present in the fall, said Chemweek.
VCI’s announcement relates to a European Parliament vote, due to take place, on a list of demands from its environment committee on the new chemicals strategy, which was announced as part of the EU Green Deal.
According to VCI, the committee is calling for major changes to chemicals legislation including the removal of quantitative thresholds, many additional tests of chemicals and animal testing, and blanket bans on use without prior risk assessment.
"The chemical-pharmaceutical industry supports a chemical strategy that promotes innovations to implement the EU's climate goals, the circular economy, and digitalization. This requires a stable legal framework," says Gerd Romanowski, managing director/science, technology, and environment at VCI.
Flat-rate bans are counterproductive, Romanowski says. Europe can only achieve greater autonomy in the supply of products such as medicines and disinfectants through effective planning by companies, to have the necessary chemicals available, he says.
VCI says that the new EU chemicals strategy should rely on strong use of the extensive REACH data, as well as on simplifications and efficiency improvements, instead of bans. Meanwhile, cooperation between European agencies and scientific advisory bodies on the evaluation of chemicals should be strengthened, VCI says.
As MRC informed before, global oil consumption cut by up to a third in Q1 2020. What happens next in the oil market depends on how quickly and completely the global economy emerges from lockdown, and whether the recessionary hit lingers through the rest of this year and into 2021.
Earlier this year, BP said the deadly coronavirus outbreak could cut global oil demand growth by 40 per cent in 2020, putting pressure on Opec producers and Russia to curb supplies to keep prices in check.
We remind that in September 2019, six world's major petrochemical companies in Flanders, Belgium, North Rhine-Westphalia, Germany, and the Netherlands (Trilateral Region) announced the creation of a consortium to jointly investigate how naphtha or gas steam crackers could be operated using renewable electricity instead of fossil fuels. The Cracker of the Future consortium, which includes BASF, Borealis, BP, LyondellBasell, SABIC and Total, aims to produce base chemicals while also significantly reducing carbon emissions. The companies agreed to invest in R&D and knowledge sharing as they assess the possibility of transitioning their base chemical production to renewable electricity.
Ethylene and propylene are feedstocks for producing polyethylene (PE) and polypropylene (PP).
According to MRC's ScanPlast report, Russia's estimated PE consumption totalled 595,170 tonnes in the first five month of 2020, up by 10% year on year. Deliveries of all ethylene polymers, except for linear low density polyethylene (LLDPE), rose partially because of an increase in capacity utilisation at ZapSibNeftekhim. At the same time, PP shipments to the Russian market was 457,930 tonnes in January-May 2020 (calculated by the formula production minus export plus import). Deliveris of exclusively PP random copolymer increased.
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