Sabic subsidiary inks LOI with Tecnicas Reunidas for new styrene plant

(plastemart) -- Petrokemya, a subsidiary of Saudi Basic Industries Corp (Sabic), has signed a letter of intent with Tecnicas Reunidas of Spain for engineering and building of a new new acryilonitrile butadiene styrene plant in Saudi Arabia.

To be built at an investment outlay of USD561 mln, the ABS plant will be located Al-Jubail industrial city.

The project is expected to be completed in the Q4-2014, with annual capacity of 140,000 tpa.

MRC

(upstreamonline) -- Brazilian giant Petrobras has claimed a spot on an annual ranking of the world's 100 most reputable companies, making it the only oil and gas company to crack the list.
The list, published by New York-based consulting firm Reputation Institute, assess the reputations of hundreds of the world's largest businesses through surveys of 47,000 people across 15 countries.

Petrobras said it snuck in at number 98, marking the company's second straight year on the list. It is the only energy company and the only Latin American company in the top 100.

"In today’s reputation economy, what you stand for matters more than what you produce and sell," Reputation Institute’s executive partner Kasper Nielsen said in a statement. "People’s willingness to buy, recommend, work for and invest in a company is driven 60% by their perceptions of the company and only 40% by their perceptions of their products."

BMW supplanted Google as the number-one most-respected company, followed by Sony and Walt Disney Company. Google fell to sixth place.

The survey, taken in April, gauges how companies are perceived based on their products and services, innovation, workplace, governance, citizenship, leadership, and financial performance.

MRC

(upstreamonline) -- A federal judge on Monday denied BP access to 21 emails and other documents sent among White House and other US officials related to the 2010 Gulf of Mexico oil spill, citing the government's need to keep them confidential.

US Magistrate Judge Sally Shushan in New Orleans said the federal interest in preserving secrecy, together with the public interest in ensuring an effective response to the next disaster, outweighed BP's need for the documents to defend itself in litigation by the government over the spill.

"This conclusion is not altered by the role of the US in the response to the spill as well as its role as a plaintiff against BP," Shushan added. The judge said she reviewed the documents in private before ruling.

Scott Dean, a BP spokesman, declined to comment.

The 20 April 2010 explosion of the Deepwater Horizon at the Macondo well site killed 11 people and triggered several hundred lawsuits against BP and its drilling partners, including rig owner Transocean and cementing-service provider Halliburton.

MRC

(tradearabia) -- Jeddah-based National Petrochemical Industrial Company (Natpet), a subsidiary of Alujain Corporation, has entered into a joint venture agreement with A Schulman of the US to produce polypropylene compounds.

The 50-50 joint venture, expected to be named Natpet-Schulman Engineering Plastic Compounds, is planning to build a polypropylene compounding plant in Yanbu, where it expects to begin production by the end of calendar-year 2014.

A Schulman's initial equity investment in the relationship is approximately EUR11 million, or approximately $14 million.

Initial project costs, including construction of the facility, infrastructure needs as well as working capital requirements are approximately EUR55 million, or approximately $70 million based on current exchange rates.

Beyond the initial equity investment by the partners, the joint venture intends to take advantage of various low-interest loan options provided by the Saudi Industrial Development Fund and other lending institutions.

The joint venture will manufacture a line of customer-preferred engineered plastic compounds based on A. Schulman's highly regarded technology. Natpet, a well-established petrochemical producer in the region, will provide the joint venture with its regional infrastructure as well as its high-quality polypropylene resin.

MRC

(basf) -- A plastic compound from BASF has, for the first time, found use in the charge-air section of a commercial vehicle. The charge-air duct on the DD13/DD15 truck engines is one of the first large production applications for the new polyamide (PA) grade Ultramid A3W2G6.

The component, which is produced by ElringKlinger from the very heat aging-resistant PA, offers high mechanical and thermal capabilities. The multifunctional oil intake module is also manufactured from a BASF polyamide. The designation DD13/DD15 covers a range of high-performance truck diesel engines with a displacement of about 13 and 15 liters, respectively, that Detroit Diesel Corporation, truck engine and component manufacturer and Daimler subsidiary, builds in the USA.

The lightweighting trend has, in the meantime, also taken hold in the truck sector. As in the automobile sector, the objective on the DD13/DD15, is to replace heavy metal parts with lightweight plastic components that provide equivalent performance. Compared to its aluminum predecessor, the lightweight charge-air duct made from the BASF polyamide is 1.8 kg, or 50 %, lighter.

The high heat-aging resistance of the polyamide 66 specialty Ultramid A3W2G6 is confirmed by its performance in pulsating pressure tests of the component at 140°C. The charge-air duct must survive 3,000 hours of pressure fluctuations between 0.4 and 3.5 bar. These are special requirements in the commercial vehicle sector. They arise from the mixing of turbocharged fresh air with the hot (up to 230°C) recirculated exhaust gas (EGR: exhaust gas recirculation). At the point where the exhaust gas is reintroduced and under high loads, as when climbing steep grades to mountain passes, peak temperatures of up to 200°C can occur.

MRC