US specialties market volumes gain in October

MOSCOW (MRC) -- Specialty chemical market volumes in the US increased 1.2% on a sequential basis in October, according to Chemweek with reference to the American Chemistry Council (ACC).

This is a higher growth rate than a revised 0.1% gain for September, and 1.1% increase in August. Of the 28 specialties segments tracked by ACC, 25 posted volume increases in October.

The largest sequential volume gain came in rubber processing chemicals, at 5.0%. Plasticizers, printing inks and plastic additives also posted sequential gains of 3.0% or more. Oilfield chemicals saw the largest volume decline, at 0.6%.

On a year-on-year (YOY) basis, US specialties volumes were down 6.5%, with 23 of the 28 segments tracked by ACC posting decreases. Oilfield chemicals posted the biggest YOY volume drop, at 22.5%, while the biggest increase was in electronic chemicals, at 8.0%.

As MRC reported earlier, Russia's output of chemical products rose in September 2020 by 6.7% year on year.
At the same time, production of basic chemicals increased year on year by 6.1% in the first nine months of 2020, according to Rosstat's data. According to the Federal State Statistics Service of the Russian Federation, polymers in primary form accounted for the greatest increase in the January-September output. September production of primary polymers decreased to 852,000 tonnes against 888,000 tonnes in August due to shutdowns in Tomsk, Ufa and Kazan. Overall output of polymers in primary form totalled 7,480,000 tonnes over the stated period, up by 16.4% year on year.
MRC

MOSCOW (MRC) -- Kumho Petro Chemical Co. has reported its third-quarter net income of 146.2 billion won (USD130.5 million), up 207.3 percent from a year earlier, according to YONHAP News Agency.

The company said in a regulatory filing that it posted 213.8 billion won in operating profit for the quarter, compared with 68.4 billion won a year ago. Revenue fell 2.3 percent to 1.18 trillion won.

The operating profit was 12.2 percent higher than the average estimate, according to the survey by Yonhap Infomax, the financial data firm of Yonhap News Agency. The estimate of net profit was not available.

As MRC reported earlier, in H1 2016, Kumho P&B Chemicals (KPB) completed its phenol, acetone and cumene capacity expansion. KPB is one of the largest producers of benzene derivatives such as phenol, bisphenol-A (BPA), acetone and cumene in South Korea.

Before the expansion, the company operated two phenol/acetone units in Yeosu that were able to produce 380,000 mt/year of phenol 450,000 mt/year of BPA, 235,000 mt/year of acetone and 430,000 mt/year of cumene. With the completion of the capacity expansion, the company had added 300,000 mt/year of phenol, 470,000 mt/year of cumene and 185,000 mt/year of acetone by June 2016.

Phenol is the main feedstock component for the production of bisphenol A (BPA), which, in its turn, is used to produce polycarbonate (PC).

According to MRC's ScanPlast report, Russia's estimated consumption of PC granules (excluding imports and exports to/from Belarus) rose in the first three quarters of 2020 by 32% year on year to 75,600 tonnes (57,200 tonnes a year earlier).

KPB is an offshore joint venture created by the joint investment of South Korea’s Kumho Petrochemical and Japan’s Nippon Steel Chemical Company in 1976.
MRC

MOSCOW (MRC) -- Merck KGaA says it has entered a collaborative partnership with Siemens for the joint development of an overall process-control system for the automation of modular production of materials and products for the electronics, pharmaceutical, and life science industries, said Chemweek.

Merck will build a first modular plant based on this production system at its Darmstadt, Germany, site by 2022, investing EUR10.0 million (USD11.9 million) for the first phase, it says. Merck has experience with modular production systems, and the aim of the collaboration is to advance the concept of flexible and simple interlinking of individual modules worldwide in the process development and production network of all its business sectors, the company says.

"The time needed from the product idea to market readiness is a critical success factor. The resulting technology platform for standardized, modular production will also be usable in product development in the future. This allows data-based decisions to be made as early as the product development phase and applied seamlessly to the production process. Therefore, in the future, we will be able to respond quicker and even more flexibly to high customer requirements," says Kai Beckmann, CEO/performance materials and board member at Merck responsible for the Darmstadt site.

Merck is taking on the establishment of the production infrastructure and Siemens is responsible for the development of process orchestration layer (POL) technology, the company says. POL is a supervisory control system that interlinks various production modules to an overall process, which is expected to operate without the need for additional programming, Merck says.

"This will create new opportunities for us to drive forward modular production and to meet growing requirements for chemical and pharmaceutical processes in our joint development work,” says Eckard Eberle, CEO/process automation at Siemens.

The project forms part of a EUR1-billion investment program announced last year for Merck's headquarters at Darmstadt until 2025, which will also be funded by the German federal ministry of economic affairs and energy on the basis that the plan's investments in modular, flexible, and efficient technology can reduce the carbon footprint of production, Merck says.

As MRC informed earlier, Merck KGaA has presented its new sustainability strategy, with which it aims to integrate sustainability more deeply as an essential component of its corporate strategy. The main aims of the strategy are to develop sustainable science and technology, integrate sustainability into all the company's value chains by 2030, and achieve climate neutrality and reduce its resource consumption by 2040, Merck says. The company will report annually on the current implementation status of the strategy.

We remind that Russia's output of chemical products rose in September 2020 by 6.7% year on year. At the same time, production of basic chemicals increased by 6.1% year on year in the first nine months of 2020, according to Rosstat's data. According to the Federal State Statistics Service of the Russian Federation, polymers in primary form accounted for the greatest increase in the January-September output. Last month's production of primary polymers decreased to 852,000 tonnes from 888,000 tonnes in August due to shutdowns in Tomsk, Ufa and Kazan. Overall output of polymers in primary form totalled 7,480,000 tonnes over the stated period, up by 16.4% year on year.

Headquartered in Darmstadt, Germany, Merck opened an OLED application center in Pyeongtaek, Korea, in 2015. Merck Korea now has 11 operation sites and some 1,200 employees and operates businesses in functional materials, health care and life sciences. The functional materials business encompasses advance materials for information technology products such as displays and semiconductors. It also includes cosmetics and paints for automobiles.
Its health care business involves pharmaceutical and medical devices for treatments of cancer, multiple sclerosis and infertility. The life sciences business deals in an extensive portfolio of over 300,000 products used for protein research, cell biology, antibodies, water purification and microbiome tests.
MRC

MOSCOW (MRC) -- WeylChem (Frankfurt, Germany), the fine chemicals platform of International Chemical Investors Group (ICIG; Luxembourg), says it is investing to build a production facility for aromatic-ring chlorination at the group's Frankfurt-Hochst site, said Chemweek.

The start of production at the new facility is planned for the first quarter of 2022, the company says. Further details have not been disclosed. The facility will strengthen the company’s capabilities in side-chain chlorination and expand them to aromatic-ring chlorination for the specialty chemicals market, meeting the growing demand in Europe for local and resilient supply chains, the company says.

WeylChem will also establish a sustainable production cycle with the new plant, in which 4-chlorobenzotrichloride, a by-product of side-chain chlorination, will be refined to 2, 3, 4, 5-tetrachlorobenzoyl chloride and no longer need to be disposed of, the company says. With all the other by-products being refined or sold, the side-chain chlorination will reduce the company's waste footprint significantly, it says.

It will also enable Weylchem to backward integrate and install its own proprietary supply chain to use these products in its halogen exchange multipurpose plant at Allessa in Frankfurt-Fechenheim, the company says.

As per MRC, Clariant, a world leader in specialty chemicals, announced the closing of the sale of its Detergents and Intermediates business to International Chemical Investors Group (ICIG). The total consideration of the sale amounts to CHF 58 million, out of which CHF 20 million in cash became due at closing. Worldwide, 660 employees were transferred from Clariant to the new ICIG business, which from now on will operate under the WeylChem brand umbrella.

As MRC informed earlier, October production of sodium hydroxide (caustic soda) were 109,000 tonnes (100% of the basic substance) versus 108,000 tonnes a month earlier. Overall output of caustic soda totalled 1,054,600 tonnes in the first ten months of 2020, down by 1.6% year on year.
MRC

MOSCOW (MRC) -- INEOS Styrolution (Frankfurt, Germany) announced an agreement with Ferrero to explore the feasibility of using its advanced recycling concepts such as depolymerization for future packaging solutions, said the compane.

The aim of INEOS Styrolution is to develop a process to convert complex plastic waste back to fully recyclable materials that comply with food contact regulations. The INEOS Styrolution recycling concept aims at contributing to a circular economy, based on the depolymerization process that converts post-consumer complex plastic waste back to its monomers. The new material created through this process would also comply with food contact regulations.

Ferrero comments: "We are pleased to work with INEOS Styrolution to explore opportunities for future packaging solutions that, today, are not available in practice and at scale. We are interested to see whether INEOS Styrolution’s approach can offer a circular solution and support the Ferrero commitment to make all its packaging 100% reusable, recyclable or compostable by 2025."

Sven Riechers, Vice President Business Management, Standard Business EMEA at INEOS Styrolution: "We are pleased to work with Ferrero and are convinced that chemical recycling can produce high-quality recycled plastics, while reducing post-consumer waste and reducing the use of valuable raw materials at the same time."

As MRC informed earlier, Styrenics Circular Solutions (SCS), a value chain initiative to increase the circularity of styrenics, announced that it has successfully demonstrated that polystyrene (PS) is mechanically recyclable to food contact standards.

According to MRC's ScanPlast report, Russia's estimated consumption of PS and styrene plastics totalled 362,820 tonnes in the first nine months of 2020, down by 1% year on year. September total estimated PS consumption in Russia was 48,690 tonnes, up by 13% year on year.
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