Japan will have to maintain higher refining rates

(ICIS) -- Japan will have to maintain higher refining rates and continue to allow the use of oil products from emergency reserves to mitigate the shortfall created by the continued shutdown of three refineries following the earthquake, industry sources said on Friday.

The three refineries totalling 617.500 bbl/day, or 14% of the overall country's refining capacity, remain shut following the devastating earthquake and tsunami of 11 March.

These include JX Nippon's 145.000 bbl/day Sendai refinery, which is located at Miyagi prefecture in northeast Japan, its 252.500 bbl/day Kashima refinery in Ibaraki prefecture, and Cosmo Oil's 220.000 bbl/day Chiba facility.

Authorities in Japan, which is the world's third-largest oil consumer, have moved to alleviate the country's shortfall in oil products by increasing the operating rates at other refineries and allowing the release of oil products from emergency industry reserves.

In addition, refiners have increased their oil product purchases from the international market.

MRC

(Ceepackaging) -- Evian claims that its new 1.5 litre bottle is made of 50% recycled-PET and contains 11% less plastic to weigh 3.4 grams less than the previous design. Evian says the new bottle reduces the carbon footprint by 32% and remains 100% recyclable. Evian even touts that the new bottle is even easier to crush, taking up less space in recycling bins.

Evian is currently working towards a target of reducing its CO2 emissions 40% between 2008 and end of 2011.

MRC

(Braskem) -- Braskem has just released the resin Flexus 9212XP (extra performance), which was developed at its Technology and Innovation Center to meet the demand in the market for high performance laminated films for use in high-speed automatic packaging processes. The main advantages include high resistance to punctures and impacts, low sealing temperatures, excellent Hot Tack and more stable Kinetic Coefficient of Friction (CoF) values after rolling.

Flexus 9212XP is an innovative and patented solution from Braskem resulting from a robust formula capable of improving Kinetic CoF stability after the rolling, transport and storage of reels. CoF is a very important property for the flexible film chain, since it indicates the ease of unreeling on extrusion, printing and rolling lines and, especially, on automated packaging machines.

MRC

(GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- Northern Technologies International Corporation, a manufacturer of sustainable biobased and certified compostable bioplastic materials, announced that it has entered into an agreement with Italy based Naturfuels S.r.l. to distribute its Natur-Tec(R) bioplastic materials and products in the Italian market.

Since January 1, 2011, the Italian government has been enforcing a ban on the production and distribution of conventional non-biodegradable polyethylene plastic bags. Italian consumers use about 300 plastic bags per capita annually, totaling to more than 20 billion plastic bags consumed every year. According to environmental lobbyist Legambiente, this number of bags represents approximately one-fifth of Europe's entire usage, and requires about 200 KT of polyethylene plastic resin to produce each year.

Under the terms of the distribution agreement, NTIC will supply Naturfuels with its patented high-strength Natur-Tec(R) BF703BX compostable film grade resin to be used for the production of bio-plastic shopping and garbage bags on conventional plastic film production equipment. BF703BX resin based film has been previously certified to be fully compostable in strict accordance to the European standard of EN13432 for compostable plastics by AIB-Vincotte, a respected Belgian 3rd-party certification provider.

MRC

(Naperville Sun) -- Portola Packaging Inc. of Naperville on Wednesday announced a pending acquisition of Integra-Seal Industries LLC of Kingsport, Tenn., for an undisclosed amount. The sale is expected to close by the end of March.

Founded in 1999, Integra-Seal is a manufacturer of low-density polyethylene tamper-evident closures for dairy, juice and bottled water packaging applications. The company is primarily known for its 38mm Integra-Lock snap-on tamper-evident closure. The company also recently commercialized its tamper-evident Dyna-Seal 38mm plastic snap-screw closure.

Portola is a leading manufacturer of stock and custom tamper-evident plastic closures and containers for dairy, juice and other food segments.

MRC