Idemitsu SM to shut SM plant in Malaysia

MOSCOW (MRC) -- Idemitsu SM (Malaysia), an affiliate of Idemitsu Kosan, one of Japan’s largest refining and petrochemical companies, is likely to shut its styrene monomer (SM) plant for maintenance, as per Apic-online.

A Polymerupdate source in Malaysia informed that the plant is planned to be shut in August 2014. It is likely to remain shut for around one month.

Located at Pasir Gudang in Malaysia, the SM plant has a production capacity of 600,000 mt/year.

As MRC informed before, Idemitsu Kosan shut all units at its 120,000 barrels-per-day Tokuyama refinery complex in western Japan after a strong earthquake of magnitude 6.3 that struck off Japan's southern island of Kyushu near the city of Oita. Naphtha crackers at the Tokuyama plant with the capacity to produce 687,000 tonnes of ethylene a year were also shut down.

Besides, previously Idemitsu Kosan had unveiled its plans to shut down its SM plant for maintenance turnaround in April 2014. It will remain off-stream for around one month. Located in Chiba, Japan, the plant has a production capacity of 210,000 mt/year.

Idemitsu Kosan is a Japanese petroleum company. It owns and operates oil platforms, refineries and produces and sells petroleum, oils and petrochemical products. The company runs two petrochemical plants in Chiba and Tokuyama. The two naphtha crackers can produce up to 997,000 tonnes of ethylene per year.
MRC

MOSCOW (MRC) -- Kraton Performance Polymers, a leading global innovator and producer of Styrenic Block Copolymers (SBCs) and other engineered polymers, announced the introduction of two new hydrogenated styrenic block copolymers (HSBCs), said the company in its press release.

Kraton MD6951 and MD1648 present a unique balance of high elasticity, extraordinary tensile strength and exceptional lower melt viscosity, which will allow for a host of new process applications to be explored. Both polymers are an extension of the versatile family of HSBCs - Kraton A and ERS polymers - and will enable innovators to pursue melt blown, injection molding, rotational molding, compression molding, or textile processes, while maintaining the softness, strength, and pliability of their products.

Kraton MD6951 is the newest HSBC in the Kraton A family, and has an enhanced flow capability never before seen on the market. It has several potential applications, including soft touch over molding, which produces such products as cell phone protectors and power tool grips, protective cling films and sound dampening materials. MD6951 maintains the reliability and hallmarks of the Kraton A family, such as softness, ease of use and compatibility. Additionally, its increased polarity makes it compatible with thermoplastic polyurethane, polystyrene, polyphenylene oxide, among others.

Kraton MD1648 is an enhanced rubber segment (ERS) styrenic block copolymer. ERS polymers are compatible with polyolefins such as polypropylene and polyethylene - plastics used in such materials as elastic non-wovens for applications such as surgical and protective apparel, diapers and industrial textiles. Historically, SBCs had certain limitations because of high viscosity making them unsuitable for fine fiber processing. However, because MD1648 possesses high elasticity and strength together with exceptionally low viscosity, it can run on existing melt blown process equipment.

As MRC wrote before, Kraton Performance Polymers has entered into a definitive agreement to combine with the styrenic block copolymer operations of Taiwan-based LCY Chemical Corp. The transaction will combine Kraton’s broad product portfolio and innovation platform with LCY’s cost-effective and innovative SBC operations and its proven record of driving growth in China and broader Asia.

Kraton Performance Polymers, Inc., through its operating subsidiary Kraton Polymers LLC and its subsidiaries, is a leading global producer of engineered polymers and styrenic block copolymers ("SBCs"), a family of products whose chemistry was pioneered by us almost fifty years ago. Kraton manufactures products at five plants globally, including our flagship plant in Belpre, Ohio, as well as plants in Germany, France and Brazil, and a joint venture plant operated in Japan.
MRC

MOSCOW (MRC) -- LANXESS is in the process of restarting its world-scale butyl rubber plant in Zwijndrecht, Belgium, after union-represented production employees agreed to accept the terms of a new two-year collective labor agreement and subsequently ended their strike, said 4-traders.

Normal supplies to customers will be re-established once the plant is fully up and running. This process will take approximately one week. In total, LANXESS will have lost nine weeks of production due to the strike. During the strike, the company's global butyl rubber network has helped to reduce the impact on customers, with supplies coming from world-scale plants in Sarnia, Canada, and Singapore.

'We are pleased that the employees, who were on strike, have voted in favor of accepting the negotiated proposal,' said Guenther Weymans, head of the Butyl Rubber business unit.

LANXESS has invested roughly EUR 250 million in Zwijndrecht in the past years and currently employs 435 people at the site.

Butyl rubber is above all used in tire inner liners - the innermost, air- and humidity-impermeable layer of a tire. It keeps tire pressure constant over a long period, thus making vehicles safer and ensuring they consume less fuel and therefore produce fewer harmful emissions.

As MRC wrote previously, last July, Lanxess celebrated the opening of its first production facility in Russia. In the new plant at the Lipetsk site, Lanxess subsidiary Rhein Chemie manufactures polymer-bound rubber additives for the markets in Russia and the Commonwealth of Independent States (CIS), primarily for the automotive and tire industries. A production facility for the bladders used in tire production is to be added in 2016. The overall investment volume in euros amounts to a seven-digit figure.

LANXESS is a leading specialty chemicals company with sales of EUR 8.3 billion in 2013 and roughly 17,300 employees in 31 countries. The company is currently represented at 52 production sites worldwide. The core business of LANXESS is the development, manufacturing and marketing of plastics, rubber, intermediates and specialty chemicals.
MRC

MOSCOW (MRC) -- PolyOne Corporation, a premier provider of specialized polymer materials, services and solutions, has introduced its Percept Authentication Technologies in Asia, as per the company's press release.

This full-spectrum portfolio of brand protection solutions, launched initially in North America and Europe late last year, is now available in the Asia Pacific region.

Consisting of a highly customizable set of technologies, Percept solutions were developed to help customers positively authenticate their products, thereby maintaining brand integrity and reducing risks associated with fraudulent goods.

"As companies continue to widen their global manufacturing footprints, the demand for authentication technologies, especially in healthcare packaging, premium food packaging and consumer electronics is increasing," said Say Eng Lee, general manager, PolyOne Color and Additives Asia. "Our advanced solutions can help these companies to protect brand integrity while minimizing revenue loss or claims resulting from inferior counterfeit goods."

Percept technologies include formulation and consultative services to assist manufacturers and brand owners in confidently detecting whether their goods are authentic or are being counterfeited.

As MRC wrote previously, PolyOne Corporation, is establishing a new Innovation Center in Shanghai, China. The new facility will facilitate collaboration, accelerate application development and increase speed-to-market for customers in the Asia Pacific region.

PolyOne Corporation, with 2013 revenues of USD3.8 billion, is a premier provider of specialized polymer materials, services and solutions. PolyOne is a provider of specialized polymer materials, services and solutions with operations in specialty polymer formulations, color and additive systems, polymer distribution and specialty vinyl resins.
MRC

MOSCOW (MRC) -- CEO Andrew Liveris said there’s a risk that tighter natural gas markets will hurt the economic assumptions behind Enterprise Products' plan to export US ethane, reported Hydrocarbonprocessing.

Global oil prices will drop and US gas prices will rise during the next five to 10 years, reducing the advantage of producing ethylene and plastics from US ethane, a natural gas liquid, Liveris said in a phone interview. After adding costs for export and import facilities, chemical makers in places such as Europe may have little incentive to buy US ethane, he said.

"It’s a high risk, because the oil-gas arbitrage that we have baked into our assumptions for our investments is half what it is today," Liveris said in the interview. "When you put that arbitrage in place and then put the cost of freight and a receiving facility, that’s a high-risk contract."

Increased production from US shale formations has created a glut of ethane, benefiting chemical makers such as Dow who turn it into ethylene and plastics, while hurting ethane producers. Enterprise said it plans to eliminate much of the estimated 300,000 bpd of excess ethane production with an export facility on the Texas coast.

"There is nothing that we see as concerning about that announcement," Liveris, who is also Dow chairman, said from company headquarters in Midland, Michigan. "The chances this will get built on schedule and impact supply is very low for us."

If Enterprise can fill its export facility, US ethane markets may balance by 2018 when new ethylene plants start production in 2018, followed by more surplus through at least 2020, Bradley Olsen, a midstream analyst at Tudor, Pickering, Holt & Co. in Houston, said in a report.

Dow is investing USD4 billion in Texas and Louisiana to expand production of ethylene and propylene using low-cost natural gas liquids such as ethane and propane. Companies such Chevron Phillips Chemical and ExxonMobil also are expanding ethylene production in the US because of the cost advantage.

Enterprise plans on starting ethane exports in the third quarter of 2016 at a refrigerated facility that will have the capacity to load 240,000 bpd, making it the largest such facility in the world. The Houston-based company said it has executed long-term contracts to support the facility and continues to discuss supplying potential customers.

Oneok, which has been rejecting about 90,000 bpd of ethane at its processing units, stands to benefit from the start of ethane exports, Christopher Sighinolfi, a New York- based analyst at Jefferies, said in a report.

Ineos Group previously announced agreements to import US ethane for European ethylene production.

As MRC reported earlier, Dow Elastomers, a business unit of The Dow Chemical Company, will soon break ground on its planned world-scale NORDEL EPDM (ethylene propylene-diene terpolymer) facility in Plaquemine, La., which will utilize the company’s newest proprietary catalyst technology to enable products with high Mooney viscosity. The facility, which will service customers globally, is expected to come online in 2016 and will leverage Dow’s comprehensive investment plan to serve its downstream businesses through increased ethylene and propylene production in the US Gulf Coast and to connect the company's US operations into feedstock opportunities from increasing supplies of shale gas. Dow is the only EPDM producer globally that has announced expansion in the highly advantaged region.

The Dow Chemical Company is an American multinational chemical corporation. As of 2007, it is the second-largest chemical manufacturer in the world by revenue (after BASF) and as of February 2009, the third-largest chemical company in the world by market capitalization (after BASF and DuPont). Dow is a large producer of plastics, including polystyrene, polyurethane, polyethylene, polypropylene, and synthetic rubber.
MRC