Blue Point Capital Partners purchased Cascadia Custom Molding

MOSCOW (MRC) -- Private equity firm Blue Point Capital Partners and its IV portfolio company VRC Engineered Solutions have purchased Cascadia Custom Molding, an injection molder that operates out of manufacturing facilities in Coeur d’Alene, Idaho, and Woodinville, Wash, said Canplastics.

The financial terms of the deal have not been disclosed. In a March 30 news release, officials with Blue Point and VRC said that they “value Cascadia’s diverse customer base and focus on complex, low-volume parts, as well as in-house capabilities that further expand VRC’s tooling, materials, production and service capabilities."

“This acquisition strategically marks the next phase of growth for both VRC and Cascadia,” said Blue Point partner Jonathan Pressnell. “Uniting the respective company visions and leveraging their combined capabilities, services, technologies and expertise across all locations will offer significant benefit to our customers. The geographic and end market expansion, along with the potential for cross-selling opportunities, makes the combined company well-positioned for growth."

As MRC informed earlier, in a bid to boost its injection molding and personal care/beauty offerings, plastic container and closure maker Pretium Packaging has acquired Olcott Plastics Inc. for an undisclosed amount. The deal is also designed to allow St. Charles, Ill.-based Olcott to offer blow molded containers and a national footprint to its customers. Founded in 1969, Olcott specializes in injection molding and decorating of single- and double-wall PP jars, as well as injection molding and lining of PP closures.

According to MRC's ScanPlast report, PP shipments to the Russian market reached 141,870 tonnes in January 2021 versus 123,520 tonnes a year earlier. Supply of homopolymer PP and PP block copolymers increased.

Cascadia is VRC’s first add-on acquisition since Blue Point acquired the platform in August 2019. Cascadia was formed in May 2016 when two firms – Accurate Molded Plastics and Mold-Rite Inc. – merged after Accurate acquired Mold-Rite.
MRC

MOSCOW (MRC) -- Covestro (formerly Bayer MaterialScience) has recently began operating a pilot plant to demonstrate the process, which depends on an intelligent foam sorting technology. The company has developed an innovative process for the chemical recycling of polyurethane (PU) flexible foam from used mattresses, as per the company's press release.

On average, mattresses contain 15 to 20 kilograms of foam, which results in a large amount of waste at the end of their useful life. The foam is primarily made of two important raw materials. While other chemical recycling approaches mainly focus on processing one of them, the Covestro process now enables the recovery of both raw materials.

Thus, Covestro has recently started operating a pilot plant for flexible foam recycling at its Leverkusen site to confirm the positive laboratory results achieved to date. The first phase is to focus on recycling one of the raw materials, before the recovery of the second component is also to be piloted from summer this year. Covestro?s goal here is to industrialize chemical recycling processes for used flexible foams and ultimately to remarket both recovered raw materials.

In cooperation with the companies Recticel and Redwave – a division of Wolfgang Binder GmbH - and as part of the PUReSmart research project, Covestro has also developed an intelligent sorting solution for separating the different PU foams from post-consumer mattresses. The software uses algorithms to correctly identify the different foam types, which facilitates an effective recycling process. This development is another element of Covestro’s digitalization strategy, combined with the new opportunities it entails for the chemicals and plastics industry.

The project is an important step forward in taking the development of the circular economy at Covestro to entirely new heights. The increased use of used materials further contributes to solving the societal challenge of sustainable disposal of such waste and to achieving the European Union?s goals for the circular economy and for climate and environmental protection.

As MRC reported earlier, Covestro closed the sale of its European polycarbonates (PC) sheets business to the Munich-based Serafin Group effective January 2, 2020. This includes key management and sales functions throughout Europe as well as production sites in Belgium and Italy.

According to MRC's ScanPlast report, Russia's overall consumption of PC granules (excluding exports from Belarus) totalled 8,100 tonnes in January 2021, up by 20% year on year (6,800 tonnes a year earlier).

Covestro (formerly Bayer MaterialScience) is an independent subgroup within Bayer. It was created as part of the restructuring of Bayer AG from the former business group Bayer Polymers, with certain of its activities being spun off to Lanxess AG. Covestro manufactures and develops materials such as coatings, adhesives and sealants, polycarbonates (CDs, DVDs), polyurethanes (automotive seating, insulation for refrigerating appliances) etc. With 2020 sales of EUR 10.7 billion, Covestro has 33 production sites worldwide and employs approximately 16,500 people (calculated as full-time equivalents).
MRC

MOSCOW (MRC) -- ExxonMobil Corp, US largest private petrochemical company, could post its first profit in five quarters on the back of improved results across its businesses, with higher oil and gas prices providing a lift of as much as USD2.7 billion, offset by costs from a February deep freeze, reported Reuters.

Last year, the company posted consecutive quarterly losses as falling oil prices and refining margins triggered write downs. It slashed operating expenses last year and analysts had forecast a per share profit of 54 cents, according to IBES data from Refinitiv.

Exxon could top Wall Street estimates based on its Wednesday securities filing, according to brokerage Raymond James & Associates. The data point to a quarterly profit of about USD2.55 billion, or 60 cents share, wrote analyst Justin Jenkins in a note.

Shares gained 12 cents to USD55.95 in late trading. The stock has gained more than a third this year to date.

The February freeze that cut power to Texas refineries and chemical plants, and curbed oil and gas supplies, caused up to USD800 million in damages and lost production volumes, Exxon indicated. ConocoPhillips and Devon Energy earlier warned of production losses from the cold snap.

The filing showed refining remains a troubled business despite sequentially improved operating margins. Refineries have been especially hard hit by a pandemic-related drop in fuel demand and a recent rise in feedstock prices.

Exxon’s chemicals operation, its only business to eke out a profit for 2020, could get a USD600 million boost over fourth quarter results on better margins. The business earned USD700 million in the final quarter. Results are scheduled to be released on April 30. Reported first-quarter earnings could hit USD2.34 billion, according to Refinitiv IBES, compared with a year-earlier loss of USD610 million.

As MRC wrote previously, ExxonMobil has shut its aromatics plant in Rotterdam-Botlek, Netherlands, for a six-week maintenance in March-April 2021. This turnaround is part of a larger repairs program at ExxonMobil's interconnected 191,000-b/d Botlek refinery and Rotterdam aromatics plant beginning in the first quarter. The Rotterdam aromatics plant is one of the largest aromatics production facilities globally and produces pure aromatics such as benzene, orthoxylene, paraxylene (PX), and cyclohexane.

Benzene is a feedstock for the production of styrene monomer (SM), which, in its turn, is a feedstock for manufacturing polystyrene (PS).

According to MRC"s ScanPlast report, January 2021 estimated consumption of PS and styrene plastics in Russia rose by 12% year on year, totalling 45,640 tonnes. The estimated consumption increased year on year for all PS grades.

ExxonMobil is the largest non-government owned company in the energy industry and produces about 3% of the world"s oil and about 2% of the world"s energy.
MRC

MOSCOW (MRC) - The net profit of Sayanskkhimplast, a Russian producer of polyvinyl chloride (PVC), grew 1.7 times in 2020 compared to 2019, Interfax reports, citing the company's statements.

Thus, the company's net profit last year amounted to 2.785 billion rubles. The plant's revenue increased by 7.9%, to 20.14 billion rubles, gross profit - by 22%, to 7.32 billion rubles. Profit from sales in 2020 increased 1.7 times, to 3.64 billion rubles.

Earlier it was reported that in December last year, Sayanskkhimplast completed the certification of the produced suspension polyvinyl chloride (PVC-S) according to the KKDIK regulation, the Turkish analogue of the REACH Regulation in force in the EU. The certification is necessary to preserve the possibility of supplying chemical products to the Turkish market in 2021. Certificates were obtained by Sayanskkhimplast JSC for suspension polyvinyl chloride and caustic soda.

According to the ScanPlast survey of MRC, Sayanskkhimplast in December 2020 increased the loading and produced about 27,900 tonnes of suspension PVC, while in November this figure was about 27,100 tonnes. For the entire period under review, the enterprise managed to produce 299,500 tonnes of polyvinyl chloride against 294,500 tonnes a year earlier.

JSC Sayanskkhimplast (Irkutsk Region), founded in 1998, represents a complex of large-scale organochlorine production facilities linked into a single production cycle. The enterprises of Sayanskkhimplast OJSC produce PVC, caustic soda and whiteness. After the commissioning of PVC production RusVinyl (Nizhny Novgorod region), Sayanskkhimplast became the second largest PVC production in Russia.
MRC

MOSCOW (MRC) -- SABIC, a global leader in the chemical industry, has announced the launch of a new recycled material made from ocean bound plastic which has been recovered from ocean-feeding waterways and inland areas within a 50 kilometer radius of the ocean, as per the company's press release.

The ocean bound material is mechanically recycled and converted into components for new consumer goods and electronics applications, such as TV remote controls and electronic razors. It has the potential to also be used in other industries in the future, such as automotive.

According to the company's statement, part of SABIC’S TRUCIRCLE portfolio and services, the new recycled material is a XENOY PC/PET compound comprising of a minimum 10% recycled ocean bound PET blended with polycarbonate (PC).

The new material, part of SABIC’s engineering thermoplastics (ETP) product range, offers potentially significant reductions in carbon footprin of up to 7% and energy consumption of up to 11% compared to its virgin grade. It has good impact strength, processability and chemical resistance.

“Our new recycled ocean bound material can help to tackle the problem directly as part of our commitment to minimize plastics waste ending up as waste”, said Sergi Monros, Vice President of Performance Polymers & Industry Solutions for Petrochemicals at SABIC. “By creating more sustainable materials and forging new collaborations, we hope to help reshape our industry and our entire value chain, whilst at the same time playing a leading role to help provide guidance for necessary regulation and governance.”

The new recycled ocean bound material forms part of SABIC’s TRUCIRCLE portfolio and services, which showcases the company’s circular innovations and can help to provide our customers with access to more sustainable materials. In doing so, SABIC aims to help them give the end-consumer more confidence about buying products with the knowledge that the material has been recycled and produced in a way that can help protect our planet.

The TRUCIRCLE portfolio spans design for recyclability, mechanically recycled products, certified circular products from feedstock recycling of used plastic, certified renewables products from bio-based feedstock and closed loop initiatives to recycle plastic back into high quality applications and help prevent valuable used plastics from becoming waste.

As MRC reported earlier, in March 2021, BP and SABIC signed a new agreement to work together to drive circular economy in the petrochemical activities at the Gelsenkirchen (Germany) chemical complex. Building on a long established relationship between the two companies at the production site, the new collaboration will help to increase production of certified circular products that take used mixed plastics to make feedstock, thereby reducing the amount of fossil resources needed in the petrochemical plants at the site.

We remind that in March 2021, SABIC and POLYRAY (Xiamen Hongtai Optical Co., Ltd.,) announced their collaboration for the use of SABIC’s PC resin based on certified renewable feedstock in the lenses of several eyewear end applications such as sunglasses, safety glasses and sports goggles.

According to MRC' ScanPlast report, Russia's overall consumption of PC granules (excluding exports from Belarus) totalled 8,100 tonnes in January 2021, up by 20% year on year (6,800 tonnes a year earlier).

Saudi Basic Industries Corporation (Sabic) ranks among the world's top petrochemical companies. The company is among the world's market leaders in the production of polyethylene, polypropylene and other advanced thermoplastics, glycols, methanol and fertilizers.
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