Covestro focuses extensively on sustainability

MOSCOW (MRC) -- Covestro has announced that it is launching a comprehensive programme to further sharpen its focus on sustainable development. The materials manufacturer has established five measurable targets it wants to achieve by 2025, covering processes and products as well as research and development, as per GV.

The programme also addresses suppliers, customers and consumers. The company aims to develop new partnerships and business models to help improve the lives of ten million people in underserved markets. Other focal points are resource conservation and climate protection.

"Our five new targets cleary demonstrate how much sustainable development will drive our business in the future," said CEO Patrick Thomas. "We are embedding sustainability at the heart of our strategy and anchoring it firmly throughout our entire company. At the same time we aim to assist others throughout the entire value-added chain to the end consumer. Together we can master the major challenges of our time and make the world a brighter place, which is both the vision and purpose of Covestro."

In keeping with this vision, the company has undertaken to improve the living conditions of ten million disadvantaged people primarily in developing and emerging countries by the year 2025. Covestro is working with customers, governmental and non-governmental organisations to develop solutions based on its materials, enabling affordable housing, preventing food spoilage and improving hygiene.

As a result, sustainability is a key driver behind innovation at Covestro. The company intends to dedicate four-fifths of its research and development expenditures to delivering sustainability solutions through to 2025. The respective projects will take into account the 17 Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) established by the United Nations and are to be achieved together with, or with the support of, recognised institutions.

Covestro intends to halve direct and indirect emissions of greenhouse gases such as CO2 per metric tonne of product relative to 2005 emissions by 2025. The company had previously set a target of a 40 % reduction by 2020, but thanks to numerous improvements in production had already almost achieved this in 2015.

Focusing on carbon, Covestro aims to use this key element as intelligently as possible and generate from it the greatest possible value. In a first step, the company plans to develop a measurement methodology in collaboration with business partners and recognised institutions.

Also, Covestro will work with its larger suppliers for them to comply fully with its sustainability requirements. A deadline of 2025 has been set for full attainment of this target. Through this initiative, the company also wants to help suppliers improve their own sustainability efforts.

As MRC reported earlier, Materials manufacturer Covestro is moving forward with a repurposing of its production operations in Brunsbuttel, Germany. An existing, idled plant for the precursor TDI will be converted for production of MDI. The plans call for roughly doubling production capacity at the site to a total of approximately 400,000 metric tons of MDI per year. Commissioning of the new plant complex is scheduled for late 2018. Preliminary plans call for a total investment volume (in euros) in the low hundreds of millions, which is already included in Covestro’s medium-term capital expenditure budget.

With 2015 sales of EUR 12.1 billion, Covestro is among the world’s largest polymer companies. Business activities are focused on the manufacture of high-tech polymer materials and the development of innovative solutions for products used in many areas of daily life. The main segments served are the automotive, electrical and electronics, construction and the sports and leisure industries. Covestro, formerly Bayer MaterialScience, has 30 production sites around the globe and as of the end of the first quarter 2016 employed approximately 15,700 people (full-time equivalents).
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MOSCOW (MRC) -- LG Chem plans to invest a total of 400 bln won (US$351.7 mln) to increase the production capacity of elastic polymers, also known as elastomers, in a bid to expand its market share against industry-leading players Dow Chemical and ExxonMobil, as per koreatimes.co.kr.

The investment comes as the firm aims to shift its focus into manufacturing value-added, premium chemical products and materials, amid growing competition in the traditional petrochemical business.

The bulk of the investment will be spent on building more manufacturing facilities in Daesan, South Chungcheong Province. The new production lines will have a capacity of some 200,000 tpa of elastomers, hiking total production to 290,000 tpa. This is the nation's largest elastomer-production facility.

As MRC informed earlier, LG Chem has completed the acquisition of Dongbu Farm Hannong, the country’s largest agricultural products provider. Following a series of negotiations since September 2015, LG Chem has finally acquired 100% equity stake in Dongbu Farm Hannong’s shares worth USD426.49 million (KRW 515.20 billion).

LG Chem Ltd., often referred to as LG Chemical, is the largest Korean chemical company and is headquartered in Seoul, South Korea. According to ICIS report, it is 15th biggest chemical company in the world in 2011. It has eight domestic factories and global network of 29 business locations in 15 countries. LG Chem is a manufacturer, supplier, and exporter of petrochemical goods, IT&E Materials and Energy Solutions.
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MOSCOW (MRC) -- The lifting of sanctions on Iran has made development of the country’s petrochemical value chain one of the most promising avenues to significantly add value to its economy, according to a new Frost & Sullivan report, as per GV.

"Abundance of feedstock, relatively suitable infrastructure, low cost of production and access to skilled labors are key factors that make Iran interesting for investors in the petrochemical space," in the opinion of Ali Mirmohammad, Frost & Sullivan’s senior consultant and business development manager for Iran. "The country’s natural reserves of ethane, propane and naphtha are sufficient to set up new petrochemical complexes within the next 10 years."

Additionally, he noted, "the government is adopting a foreign policy approach to not only strengthen local capabilities, but also to increase non-oil exports to more than USD 50-billion based on downstream verticals derived from petrochemical and mining industries."

The “Iran Vision 2025” aims to make the country the largest producer of petrochemical products along the value chain in the region. To achieve this goal will require at least USD 70-billion of financial resources. Such an investment is expected to increase petrochemical industry exports to over USD 40-billion by the end of 2025 from less than USD 12-billion in 2015.

Iran plans to attract foreign investments to resume over 60 halted petrochemical projects that would increase production capacity to 130-million t/y in the next five years from 58-million t/y currently. The government has proposed 36 new investment projects that could raise the production capacity to over 180-million t/y in 2025.

"Creating value-added opportunities along the entire propylene industry value chain is one of the primary focus areas for the government for the next 10 years with regard to the petrochemical sector," said Ali. "Importing high technologies and catalysts to produce various grades of polypropylene are other key policies."

To encourage investment, the government is offering several incentive plans, including discounts on natural gas, long-term tax-exempt savings plans, and 25-year guaranteed feedstock supply agreements.

As MRC informed previously, as of 2015, a number of active Iranian Petrochemical complexes are 53, with total production capacity of 59 million metric ton, producing range of polymers, chemicals, aromatics & liquid gas, located mainly at Iranian south region, next to Persian Gulf, called Assaluyeh and Mahshahr Special Economic Zones.

At the moment, there are 67 developments projects in the country which are under construction, adding 61 million metric ton on total production and estimated to fully run till 2018.
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MOSCOW (MRC) -- BASF is stepping up its regional research and development (R&D) activities for automotive coatings in a new world-class platform at the BASF Innovation Campus Asia Pacific in Shanghai, China, as per the company's press release.

At these state-of-the-art coatings and coating resins laboratories, the company’s R&D team is innovating to address regional automotive customers’ growing demands for high-performance, quality and flexible coatings solutions with a lower environmental impact.

"We anticipated early the growth potential of the automotive industry in Asia, as well as the build up of R&D capacities of our customers," said Peter Fischer, Senior Vice President, Coatings Solutions, Asia Pacific, BASF. "One key enabler for future success is the globalization of our R&D landscape and to establish an organization to meet future market needs. That is what we did. We target to increase our R&D personnel in Asia Pacific, mostly in China."

With high level of expertise and cutting-edge facilities, the new laboratories focus on R&D activities for coating formulations, resins, polymer synthesis, as well as coating applications for spray-coats and electro-deposition coatings. Latest coating application technologies also ensures that customer’s production line conditions can be simulated, creating superior values to customers.

In general, demand for sustainable and high-performance coatings that reduce volatile organic compounds in the automotive industry is on the rise. "We have built up significant R&D resources at the Innovation Campus in Shanghai, where many of our innovations are developed to benefit our customers. We will further invest and come up with new solutions that address growing demand of our customers for products that are sustainable, durable and esthetically pleasing," added Rafael Bautista Mester, Head of R&D and Technology Management, Coatings Solutions Asia Pacific, BASF. "Bringing together our R&D talent, we are working on global and regional projects that focus on researching and developing new and improved products, application and alternative technologies."

As MRC reported earlier, in February 2016, AkzoNobel, the leading global producer of paints and coatings, said it was in discussions with BASF to acquire BASF’s industrial coatings business. BASF confirmed that it was in discussions with AkzoNobel on the potential sale, but also declined to give further information. BASF is relatively small in industrial coatings. Its main coatings sectors are automotive and consumer. Industrial coatings are lumped under others, which in 2014 had sales of about EUR240 million, or 8% of coatings sales of EUR2.98 billion. BASF says its main competitors in industrial coatings are AkzoNobel and PPG.

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.
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MOSCOW (MRC) -- Celanese Corporation, a global technology and specialty materials company, has announced that it successfully completed a debt transaction in July to refinance its secured credit facility with a new credit facility consisting of a USD500 million unsecured term loan and a USD1 billion unsecured revolver, each maturing in July 2021, as per the company's press release.

The existing secured credit facility was terminated accordingly. "This transaction represents a key step in the progression towards our goal of an Investment Grade credit rating," said Chris Jensen.

We remind that, as MRC informed previously, Celanese Corporation raised July list and off-list selling prices for Ateva ethylene-vinyl-acetate (EVA) and low denisty polyethylene (LDPE) polymers in North and South America. The price increase was effective July 1, 2016, or as contracts allow. Thus, prices of Ateva EVA and LDPE rose by USD0.05/lg (USD 0.11/kg or USD110/tonne) for North and South America.

Celanese Corporation is a global technology leader in the production of differentiated chemistry solutions and specialty materials used in most major industries and consumer applications. Based in Dallas, Celanese employs approximately 7,000 employees worldwide and had 2015 net sales of USD5.7 billion.
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