Spot PET prices in Kazakhstan dropped by 14.5% -16.6%

MOSCOW (MRC) -- Spot prices of bottle grade polyethylene terephthalate (PET) in Kazakhstan have fallen by 14,5-16,6% since early 2015. Traders reduced prices because of weaker demand and cheaper imports that arrived into the market in January, according to ICIS-MRC Price report.

This week's prices of bottle grade PET were heard at Tenge 250,000-265,000/tonne CPT Almaty, including VAT. Back in late December, spot prices were at Tenge 300,000-310,000/tonne CPT Almaty, including VAT. Converters' activity remained seasonally low in January. In addition, spot prices were affected by the overall downward price trend in the world. Importers reported reduced costs for purchasing of material because the national currency (tenge) remained stable against the US dollar.

Traders said domestic prices might go down further by mid-February.

As reported before, PET imports to Kazakhstan remained stable from January to November 2014 compared to the same period of 2013. The Kazakh market imported 48,600 tonnes of PET chips from January to November.
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MOSCOW (MRC) -- China boosted crude processing to an all-time high in December as refineries resumed operations after seasonal maintenance and a plant in the country’s east started a new distillation unit, said Bloomberg.

Refiners processed 44.58 million metric tons of crude last month, or about 10.54 million barrels a day, both record levels, data from the National Bureau of Statistics in Beijing show. The world’s second-largest oil consumer refined a total of 502.77 million tons in 2014, up 5.3 percent from a year ago.

"Sinopec and CNOOC contributed most to the increase in crude throughput as they brought refineries back online from maintenance in the last two months," Amy Sun, an analyst at ICIS-C1 Energy, a Shanghai-based consultant, said by phone from Guangzhou. "Also, Sinopec started a new crude distillation unit at its Yangzi refinery."

China is processing more crude amid the slump in global oil prices, bolstering speculation that its consumption may help eliminate a global supply glut. The nation’s refiners will raise operating rates in the coming months amid low diesel stockpiles and "healthy" margins, the Paris-based International Energy Agency predicted last week.

China National Offshore Oil Corp. restarted its Huizhou refinery, which has a crude-processing capacity of 241,000 barrels a day, at the end of November, according to SCI International, a Shandong-based industry website. China Petroleum & Chemical Corp., known as Sinopec, also resumed operations at its 131,000 barrel-a-day Jiujiang plant on Dec. 15, it said.

Domestic crude production rose by 2.1 percent from a year earlier to 18.32 million tons in December, the statistics bureau’s data show. Natural gas output climbed 8.9 percent to 12.2 billion cubic meters, while power generation gained 1.3 percent to 490.2 billion kilowatt-hours.

As MRC wrote before, Sinopec is at the forefront of a China government push to restructure state-controlled companies and allow markets a bigger role in the allocation of resources. The company is seeking to raise 100 billion yuan selling about a third of its retail unit.
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MOSCOW (MRC) -- Last year's overall production of low density polyethylene (LDPE) in Belarus dropped by 1.1% and totalled 136,000 tonnes, reported MRC analysts.

According to the National Statistics Committee of Belarus, Polymir, the local polyethylene (PE) producer, maintained in December its November PE output - about 12,000 tonnes. Thus, the overall LDPE production in Belarus was about 136,000 tonnes from January to December 2014 versus 137,500 tonnes a year earlier.

Polymir was founded in 1968. Technologies of the largest foreign firms of England, Japan, Germany, Italy (Courtaulds, Asahi Chemical Co. Ltd, Kanematsu Gosho, SNIA BPD, etc.), as well as developments of the CIS" scientific research institutes, were used in the process of creating the plant"s technological base. The plant"s annual production capacity is 130,000 tonnes of LDPE.
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MOSCOW (MRC) -- An increasingly competitive polyester films market is prompting Teijin DuPont Films Japan Ltd. to close its Gifu, Japan, manufacturing facility, Tokyo-based Teijin announced Jan. 15, said Plasticsnews.

In a filing to Tokyo Stock Exchange, the company said Gifu would stop commercial production in September 2016 and its business would shift to the company’s Utsunomiya, Japan, factory or overseas locations. It’s the latest of a series of restructuring plans first unveiled by Teijin in November.

"To date, TDFJ has implemented numerous measures to reduce costs, including discontinuing production at its Ibaraki factory, to make its polyester films business more competitive," it said in a statement.

"Despite these efforts, increasingly intense rivalry in global markets persuaded the company of the need to further integrate its production facilities to enhance production efficiency and ensure profitability going forward," Teijin said.
Gifu, which has annual production capacity of 30,000 metric tons, will continue as a research and development center.

Teijin said 240 employees work in the manufacturing department there and that "as much as possible" it will try to find other jobs for them within Teijin.

In its November announcement, the company said it would scale back some operations in more commodity plastics, such as closing its polycarbonate manufacturing plant in Singapore later this year because the plant has high feedstock costs.

At the same time, it said it would increase investment in other materials, including carbon-fiber reinforced thermoplastics and blends of PC and polyphenylene sulfide plastic, and study establishing a CFRP production facility in the United States.

Teijin, which has 16,000 employees, posted sales of USD7.7 billion in its fiscal year end March 31.

As MRC wrote before, Teijin Ltd. has disclosed "dramatic restructuring" initiatives that reflect changes in the business environment and are intended to move the company toward a solutions-oriented business model. Among the planned actions, Teijin said it will with-draw by the end of December 2015 from its Teijin Polycarbonate Singapore subsidiary which lacks competitiveness in terms of energy costs. According to a recent notice to the Tokyo Stock Exchange, the Singapore plant has 225,000 t/y of polycarbonate (PC) capacity. The company explained that the plastics business has been impacted by a supply-demand balance that remains persistently adverse, and an inability to pass on price increases for raw materials by raising sales prices.

Teijin is a technology-driven global group offering advanced solutions in the areas of sustainable transportation, information and electronics, safety and protection, environment and energy, and healthcare. Its main fields of operation are high-performance fibers such as aramid, carbon fibers & composites, healthcare, films, resin & plastic processing, polyester fibers, products converting and IT. The group has some 150 companies and around 17,000 employees spread out over 20 countries worldwide. It posted consolidated sales of JPY745.7 billion (USD 7.4 billion) and total assets of JPY 762.4 billion (USD7.6 billion) in the fiscal year ending March 31, 2013.

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MOSCOW (MRC) -- BASF is enlarging its product range of extruded polystyrene rigid foam panels (XPS) with the brand name Styrodur to include a new product: Styrodur 3000 CS has the same thermal conductivity of 33 mW/mK across all panel thicknesses from 30 to 240 mm, as per the company's press release.

The thermal conductivity of the insulation panels is up to 15% better than standard Styrodur grades.

The new production technology involves joining together several thinner panels with excellent technical properties. This now means panels with a thickness of more than 140 mm can be manufactured with improved thermal conductivity. "With this technology, for which we have filed a patent application, BASF offers an extruded foam providing the proven high quality of Styrodur with lots of advantages for builders, the building material suppliers, planners and architects," says Klaus Ries, who is responsible for BASF’s styrene foams business in Europe.

Besides improved thermal conductivity, the new technology also leads to faster availability of thick insulation panels. The resulting flexibility benefits primarily the building material suppliers and construction site management.

The new Styrodur 3000 CS provides architects and planners with a product for many structural and civil engineering applications. Using Styrodur 3000 CS simplifies calculations as a result of it having the same thermal conductivity for all thicknesses. Thanks to the better thermal conductivity, the U-values (thermal transfer coefficient) required by law can be achieved with much thinner boards. In addition, it is now possible to install the insulation in one layer, allowing the insulation to be installed by the craftsman at the building site more quickly and cost-efficiently. This means that Styrodur 3000 CS insulation is particularly economical in perimeter areas and inverted roofs.

As MRC wrote before, BASF is the first European manufacturer to have completely switched a production plant for XPS (extruded polystyrene rigid foam) to a new polymeric flame retardant (PolyFR).

BASF is the leading chemical company. It produces a wide range of chemicals, for example solvents, amines, resins, glues, electronic-grade chemicals, industrial gases, basic petrochemicals and inorganic chemicals. The most important customers for this segment are the pharmaceutical, construction, textile and automotive industries. BASF had sales of about EUR74 billion in 2013 and over 112,000 employees as of the end of the year. BASF shares are traded on the stock exchanges in Frankfurt (BAS), London (BFA) and Zurich (AN).
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