BorSafe HE3490-LS to deliver longevity to Estonian power plant pipes

(Borealis) -- Durability and efficiency were the determining factors behind the choice of PE100 BorSafe HE3490-LS from Borealis, a leading provider of chemical and innovative plastics solutions, for renovation of a crucial cooling water circulation system at the world's two biggest oil shale-fired thermal power plants.

Estonian Energy, referred to locally as ⌠Eesti Energia, owns and operates the large production facilities at Narva, close to Estonia's northeast border with Russia. The Narva thermal power plants have a power generating capacity in excess of 2,300MW. Estonia Energy is the leading electrical energy producer in Estonia, one of the largest providers in the Baltic region and an exporter of electricity to the Nordic power market.

Upon discovering extensive pipe corrosion in the system as part of an ongoing improvement programme at Narva, Estonia Energy turned to independent Estonia-based specialist plastic pipe producer Krah Pipes OU to upgrade the approximately 40-year-old steel cooling water pipes. The old pipes did not have a Borealis coating and were not made of Borealis material.

Key requirements for the new network, involving two parallel pipelines running from a pumping station to the plants' turbine room, were safety and the reduced maintenance of leak-free pipes with a minimum 30-year service life. Speed and flexibility of installation were particularly important to avoid significant power generating downtime and major cost penalties.

Borealis' bimodal HDPE BorSafe HE3490-LS was identified as the pipe material offering the optimum balance of properties to meet the project's criteria. The high performance PE100 material, classified MRS 10 and on the positive list of the PE100+ Association, exceeds the reference standard for the production of these pipes. It has become the reference material for many industrial pipe and pipe relining projects globally.

MRC

(ICIS) -- EU chemicals and industrial production fell in October as demand was hit by the continuing eurozone debt crisis, data from statistics agency Eurostat showed on Wednesday. EU chemicals production was down by 0.8% in October compared with September, with a 1.2% decline in the 17-member eurozone.

Year on year, chemicals production in October, adjusted for the number of working days in each period, was 2.1% lower in the 27-member EU and down by 3.2% in the eurozone.

Industrial production in the EU was down by 0.2% month on month in October, and fell by 0.1% in the eurozone, Eurostat said. In September, production had decreased by 2.0% and 1.5% month on month, respectively.

In October 2011 compared with October 2010, industrial production increased by 1.3% in both zones.

Production of energy in October fell by 0.6% in the EU and by 0.9% in the eurozone, compared with September. The production of intermediate goods and durable consumer goods also dropped month on month.

MRC

(ICIS) -- The forecast for world oil demand growth in 2012 has been revised down by 100,000 bbl/day to 1.1m bbl/day, because of a slowdown in the global economy, OPEC said on Tuesday.
Global oil demand in 2012 is now expected to average 88.9m bbl/day, said OPEC. Economic uncertainty has spilled over to non-Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) countries following the eurozone debt crisis, which has negatively impacted world oil demand, it added.

⌠In 2011, the global economy entered a phase of increased uncertainty. While underlying demand in the real economy has improved, the outlook has weakened over the course of the year, OPEC said in its December monthly oil market report. "This was mainly due to the sovereign debt crisis in the eurozone, persistently high unemployment in the advanced economies, and inflation risk in the emerging economies," it added.

OPEC said that the negative economic turbulence is affecting China, the second-largest oil consumer in the world. ⌠Slow oil demand, initiated in the OECD region, has moved to China and India, leading to a new downward revision of 100,000 bbl/day in next year's oil demand growth forecast, said OPEC.

OPEC said retail petroleum prices are also negatively affecting oil demand across the globe. ⌠The new downward revision is not restricted to the OECD region only, but is spreading to the non-OECD region as well. The transportation and industrial sectors are the ones most affected," it added.
OPEC said the use of oil in both sectors is noticeably slowing down worldwide.

MRC

(MRC) -- A weak demand for finished products made of PVC, sufficient availability of the resin in the market and low prices from Russian producers resulted in reduction of PVC imports to Russia. In November, import volumes of suspension PVC fell to 20.8 thousand tonnes, according to MRC DataScope.

Since September, PVC-S imports have been gradually reducing, due to a low demand for finished products made of PVC, oversupply of the resin and low prices from Russian producers. By mid-November, the demand for finished products made of PVC had fallen sharply.

In early December, the market of finished products have boosted a bit, but a seasonal factor still has a major impact in the market. This month, quite a lot of Russian converters refused to purchase PVC, some companies reduced purchases by many times in comparison with November.

In advance of these factors, in September the companies-importers significantly reduced their purchases of PVC in external markets. As a result, imports of PVC-S to the Russian market had fallen to 20.8 thousand tonnes by the end of last month.

Supplies of the resin from the U.S. fell to 8.6 thousand tonnes (a record volume of imports fell on May 2011 - about 36 thousand tonnes). The imports of acetylene PVC from China fell to 600 tonnes.

In general, over the 11months imports of PVC-S to the Russian market exceeded 437 thousand tonnes, which was by 35% more, year on year. After two weeks of December, the imports of suspension to the Russian market made 9.3 thousand tonnes. Supplies from the U.S. amounted to 5.8 thousand tonnes, Ukraine - 1.9 thousand tonnes, China - a bit more than 700 tonnes.


MRC

(ICIS) -- DuPont CEO Ellen Kullman on Tuesday criticised news media outlets for reporting of what she said were rumours and speculation that the company planned to sell chemical coatings business.
Kullman would not confirm or deny such plans. ⌠I think this [reporting] is terrible, Kullman told analysts during a webcast investor event. ⌠Quite frankly, I am a little appalled about the [┘] responsibility of certain, you know, media outlets, she said in responding to an analyst who was seeking her comment about the future of the coatings business.

Kullman said DuPont was putting all of its 13 businesses to a ⌠rigorous portfolio process, with very clear goals for each business, ⌠and we expect them to meet them.
⌠I love all my children equally, until I don't love them. That does bother my own children, but in business it seems to work, Kullman said. ⌠Time will tell about any disposals DuPont may or may not decide on, she added.

In October, a newswire service reported that DuPont was seeking buyers for its performance coatings division.

MRC