Plastics firms merger creates Omega Group

MOSCOW (MRC) -- Blyth-based Omega Plastics has agreed a merger with Washington-based Signal Plastics, a provider of plastic injection moulding to create The Omega Group, said Plasticsnews.

As a result of the merger, the expanded company is projected to turnover in excess of GBP9m in 2016 with headcount set to rise from 80 to more than 100 across the three sites.

Omega Group will be led by Dave Crone, group managing director; Gary Powner, Omega Plastics managing director; Alan Franklin, Signal Plastics managing director and Julian Jamieson, operations director at Signal. Omega Plastics and Signal Plastics will retain their individual trading names.

Commenting on the merger, Dave Crone said: "Both of our businesses had proved successful in their respective markets but there were sufficient complementary overlaps in our products and processes to make a strategic alliance of the two almost inevitable. Omega Plastics will continue to provide first class design, tooling, moulding and assembly with the added benefit of specialist high volume moulding provided by Signal Plastics. This combination of our resources and expertise means Omega and Signal are now even stronger together."

Omega Plastics was formed in 2006 and was originally based at Team Valley, Gateshead. In 2007 the company moved into a purpose-built 930 sq metres factory in Blyth. Five years later and in order to increase production capacity Omega opened a second facility in Hartlepool.

Since its launch in 2007, Signal Plastics has moved three times into increasingly larger premises. In January 2016 the business will move to a new 3,900 sq metres facility in Washington.

Signal Plastics managing director Alan Franklin, said: "Like Omega Plastics, our business has experienced sustained growth in a relatively short period.

"The merger has provided the stability we need to complete our latest move to a much larger site and to make further investments in the plant and machinery that will increase our production capability. We’re also aiming to create more than 20 new jobs over the next year and together with our colleagues at Omega we will be sharing best practices and offering improved career development opportunities to our workforce."

The Omega Group will continue to provide rapid and production tooling products as well as plastic injection moulding to customers across a range of sectors including automotive, electronics, FMCG, medical, personal care and bio-tech.

As it was informed earlier, last year Omega Plastics expanded its custom profile extrusion business with the acquisition of Vinylex Corporation.

Omega’s corporate headquarters are located in the heart of the southeast in Knoxville, TN, home of the University of Tennessee. This state-of-the-art plastic extrusion facility is ideally located just a few miles from interstates I-40 & I-75. Omega also serves the southeast and west markets from a second state-of-the-art plastic extrusion facility, strategically located in the Dallas/Fort Worth area of Texas.MRC

MOSCOW (MRC) -- Five chemical companies, including Akzo Nobel, DSM, Evonik Industries, Mitsubishi Chemical Holdings and Solvay have recently launched a plan to reduce emissions by an additional 1.4 gigatonnes (Gt) per year by 2030, said Chemicals-technology.

The companies have decided to work with other partners to develop sustainable solutions, as well as improve their own performances to reduce emission.

They plan to strengthen research and development activities, and market new technologies that reduce carbon emissions.

The initiative is a part of the World Business Council for Sustainable Development's (WBCSD) Low Carbon Technology Partnerships initiative (LCTPi), which mainly seeks to create solutions for reducing carbon footprints.

The WBCSD has partnered with more than 140 businesses and 50 industry partners to speed up the process of developing and deploying new technologies for lowering carbon emissions.

As part of this initiative, all the five firms will work according to the guidelines of LCTPi. WBCSD president and CEO Peter Bakker said: "As an industry of industries, the chemical sector plays an important role in spurring low carbon growth.

"These five global leaders are a vanguard of the chemical industry. Meeting the ambitions they have set across their sector and its value chains can contribute significantly to global emissions reductions in other sectors. "I call on other forward-looking companies to join this initiative and collaborate to bring those actions to life."

As it was writtten earlier, today, 3% of transportation fuels are low-carbon. Within this LCTPi, eleven leading low carbon fuel companies intend to increase their business and the share of low-carbon fuels in transport. According to the International Energy Agency (IEA), 10% of fuels must be low-carbon by 2030 if we are to satisfy economic growth while staying below a 2°C increase of global average temperature. The report presents the current and future status of decarbonising the transportation sector, some country case studies and an overview of the relevant technologies.
MRC

MOSCOW (MRC) -- Phillips 66 has put Ireland's Whitegate refinery up for sale, the company confirmed this week, as per Hydrocarbonprocessing.

The news was first reported by the Irish Examiner. The sale listing for the Whitegate refinery comes more than a year after Phillips 66 removed the country's only refinery plant from the market, having failed to find a suitable buyer.

The US-based oil refiner tried to sell the plant near Cork in 2014 amid low refining margins, but failed to attract strong enough bids.

"Phillips 66 has decided to seek a buyer for its 71,000 bpd Whitegate Refinery and associated wholesale marketing business in Ireland," said Dennis Nuss, director of media and external relations.

"We will run a rigorous process to find the best purchaser for the business," he added. "We expect this process to last into 2016."

Refining margins have improved in 2015 as demand has picked up and the cost of crude has continued to fall. "We've seen a stronger margin in the Atlantic Basin this year, and Whitegate has been performing well in this environment," a Phillips 66 spokesman was quoted as saying by the Irish Examiner.

As MRC informed earlier, billionaire Warren Buffett dumped ExxonMobil shares held by Berkshire Hathaway and took a USD4.5 billion stake in refiner Phillips 66 after souring on the outlook for oil prices.

Phillips 66 Company is an American multinational energy company headquartered in Westchase, Houston, Texas. It debuted as an independent energy company when ConocoPhillips executed a spin-off of its downstream and midstream assets. Taking its name from the 1927 "Phillips 66" trademark of ConocoPhillips predecessor Phillips Petroleum Company, Phillips 66 began trading on the New York Stock Exchange on May 1, 2012, under the ticker PSX. The company is engaged in producing natural gas liquids (NGL) and petrochemicals. The company has approximately 14,000 employees worldwide and is active in more than 65 countries.
MRC

MOSCOW (MRC) -- Korean petrochemical company SK Global Chemical has scheduled a maintenance turnaround at its linear low density polyethylene (LLDPE) plant next year, as per Apic-online.

A Polymerupdate source in South Korea informed that the plant is planned to be shut in September-October 2016. It is likely to remain off-stream for around 40 days.

Located in Ulsan, South Korea, the No.1 LLDPE plant has a production capacity of 210,000 mt/year.

As MRC wrote before, in October 2015, SABIC and South SK Global Chemical inaugurated a new industrial plant to manufacture a range of high-performance polyethylene products using the cutting-edge Nexlene Solution Technology. The 50-50 joint venture holding company, SABIC SK Nexlene Company (SSNC) was established last July and is headquartered in Singapore. Its wholly-owned subsidiary, Korea Nexlene Company (KNC), owns the plant in Ulsan, which has an annual capacity of 230,000 tons. The aggregate purchase price for the technology and plant is approximately USD 640 million.

SK Global Chemical is a pioneering petrochemical company in Korea, being the first in the country to build a naphtha cracking facility in 1972. Through continuous facility investment, R&D and technological improvement, the company has maintained its position as the leader of the petrochemical industry in Korea.
MRC

MOSCOW (MRC) -- Alwaha Petrochemical Co., which is 75% owned by Sahara Petrochemicals Co., has signed a SAR 262.5 million (USD70 million) revolving loan agreement with the Saudi Fund for Development (SFD), as part of the Saudi Export Program, said Argaam.

The financing facility, which has a five-year tenure, will fund the company’s working capital, Sahara said in a statement.

The loan is meant to promote Saudi-produced petrochemicals with the export program.

As MRC informed earlier, in May 2015, Alwaha Petrochemical shut its PP production for the turnaround.

Al Waha Petrochemicals Company is owned by Sahara Petrochemicals Company, which holds 75% of its share capital with LyondelBasell owning 25%. The company produces 460,000 tonnes/year of propylene and 450,000 tonnes/year of polypropylene (PP) at its complex in Jubail, Saudi Arabia.

MRC