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MOSCOW (MRC) -- Ascend Performance
Materials (Houston, Texas) has acquired Eurostar Engineering Plastics (Fosse,
France), a compounder with a broad portfolio of flame-retardant (FR) engineered
plastics and expertise in halogen-free formulations, said Chemweek.
Terms
of the deal were not disclosed. The company also says it is very close to
obtaining FDA and EPA approval to make COVID-19-related claims for its Acteev
Protect antimicrobial fabric technology. "We are following through on our
strategy of becoming a more global, diversified and reliable supplier to our
customers,” says Phil McDivitt, Ascend’s president and CEO. "For us this is a
play into a broader, more specified business. Eurostar is very strong
technically." He notes that Eurostar has yellow-card certification from
Underwriters Laboratories for over 100 flame-retardant polyamide
products.
"Our purchase of Eurostar is a real accelerator," says
McDivitt. "It greatly expands our FR portfolio--we believe it will give us the
fullest FR line in the engineering plastics business. The challenge for Eurostar
[has been that] it's a Europe-only company with one site. We're able to fully
leverage our global footprint and take these products into the US and
Asia."
Ascend, a fully integrated producer of nylon 6,6, acquired two
other European businesses, Poliblend and Esseti Plast GD, from D’Ottavio Group
in February 2020. That deal brought a manufacturing facility in Mozzate, Italy,
Esseti Plast's masterbatch portfolio, and Poliblend's portfolio of engineering
plastics, which included virgin and recycled grades of nylons 6 and 6,6,
polybutylene terephthalate (PBT), and and polyoxymethylene (POM or
polyacetal).
In June 2020, Ascend acquired the assets of NCM (Changshu)
Co. and Tehe Engineering Plastic (Suzhou) Co. located in Changshu Yushan
High-tech Industrial Park near Shanghai. Ascend intends to expand the
compounding assets at the site and to establish a global research and
development center.
"Between these acquisitions and the launch of our
Acteev Protect line, it's been a very transformational year for Ascend," says
McDivitt. Ascend launched the Acteev Protect antimicrobial technology, which
embeds zinc oxide within the polymer lattice of nylon 6,6, in June. Ascend
originally developed Acteev to control odor in fabrics by inhibiting bacterial
growth, but over 350 third-party studies have shown it is also highly effective
against SARS-CoV-2, the virus that causes COVID-19. The company has been working
with FDA and EPA since the second quarter of 2020, and it expects the agencies
to approve the use of Acteev in masks and other applications to protect against
SARS-CoV-2 during the first quarter of 2021.
Ascend has already produced
millions of pounds of Acteev nylon 6,6, a portion of which the company used to
make over 600,000 masks. "We see Acteev being a whole new part of Ascend," says
McDivitt. "We'll have a medical side of the business and a non-medical
side."
As per MRC, Ascend Performance Materials (Houston) has increased its
prices, effective immediately, for adiponitrile (ADN), acrylonitrile, adipic
acid, and hexamethylenediamine (HMDA). The prices of HMDA and ADN have each
been hiked by USD350/metric ton, while acrylonitrile has been raised by
USD200/metric ton. The price of adipic acid has been increased by USD100/metric
ton. All the price rises are as contracts allow, with non-contract business
prices determined on an order-by-order basis, it says.
We remind
that Russia's output of chemical products rose in November 2020 by 9.5% year
on year. At the same time, production of basic chemicals increased in the first
eleven months of 2020 by 6.6% year on year, 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-November 2020 output. November production of polymers in primary form
rose to 896,000 tonnes from 852,000 tonnes in October. Overall output of
polymers in primary form totalled 9,240,000 tonnes over the stated period, up by
17.1% year on year. |
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