LyondellBasell says fire at La Porte under control

(Bloomberg) -- LyondellBasell Industries NV said a fire at its La Porte, Texas, plant was in a non-operating part of the facility and has been contained by staff.

The fire occurred in a part of the chemical complex that is being demolished, spokesman David Harpole said in a telephone interview. The fire was unrelated to an earlier flaring incident that was reported on the community hotline, Harpole said, while declining to comment on operations at the plant.

The La Porte complex produces ethylene, propylene, linear low-density polyethylene and low-density polyethylene, according to the company website.

MRC

(PRW) -- Global chemical distributor Univar has signed an agreement to acquire leading Turkish chemical distributor, Eral-Protek. The deal is expected to close in February.

Istanbul-based Eral-Protek is one of the leading players in the region's mid-size chemical distribution sector and has a strong reputation with more than 25 years' experience in the Turkish market.

The acquisition, together with the Istanbul and Izmir operations of Basic Chemical Solutions, whose global business was purchased by Univar in December, will give Univar a solid local presence in the region.

Eral-Protek distributes a wide range of products, including a number of exclusive lines, and has a strong focus on specialty chemicals, which aligns with Univar's own specialty chemical offering. In particular it distributes into the rubber, coating, construction, plastic and composite industries.

MRC

(PRW) -- Silvergate Plastics of Wrexham North Wales has completed a 50,000 pounds programme of improvements that will increase the company's manufacturing capacity by 33% to a sales value of 9 mln pounds.

The improvements include a reduction of rework by 65%, sophisticated overall equipment effectiveness (OEE) monitoring and new mixing procedures. Raw material storekeeping has also been greatly improved.

The changes have been driven by operations executive Joe Dourneen who joined Silvergate almost a year ago. ⌠The people here knew what to do. I have merely helped to transplant and translate that for the benefit of the whole business, he explained.

MRC

(prw) -- Scotland's John McGavigan, a producer of in-mould decoration (IMD) and technical plastic components for the global automotive and domestic appliance markets, has attracted a multi-million pound investment from Maven Capital Partners. The cash will be used to expand the firm's UK R&D and production operation in support of a planned expansion into the Asian market.

McGavigan was acquired by management in 2009 following the restructuring of its then US parent company ADS. The company now exports more than 90% of its products into Eastern Europe, Mexico and China.

Steve Mathers, the group commercial director, said: ⌠The Group is now well positioned to execute our growth and expansion strategy designed to serve our customers and stakeholders alike, with expansion into Asia and the continued development of our manufacturing and product development operations in Scotland. The industries we serve look for long term partnerships and our relationship with Maven is very much in line with this.

MRC

MOSCOW (MRC) -- Summarizing 2010 total volume of finished compounds production from PVC by Russian producers grew more than by 10% compared to the same period in 2009, according to MRC analysts. Launch of new lines by several PVC compositions producers let increase the production capacities more than by 30 KTa.

Along with other fields of polymers consumption, sector of PVC compositions production is successively recovering from the aftereffects of the world financial crisis.

The main event of the year is the launch of PVC compositions production site in Tula in August, 2010 by German company Polymer-Chemie with total capacity of 20 KTa. Among other market players who installed new capacities in PVC compositions production the following can be specified: Bashplast, Polygran, Polymerplast, Uralchimplast and others. In 2011 the launch of some more lines in soft PVC compositions production is expected.

MRC