Taiwan's Nan Ya starts 45-day safety checks at Chiayi plants

SINGAPORE (ICIS) -- Nan Ya Plastics, an affiliate of Taiwan's petrochemical giant Formosa Plastics, has launched on Wednesday a comprehensive safety checks of its facilities in Chiayi county after Sunday's fire damaged its 48,000 tonne/year synthetic paper plant.

⌠We have started to look at all the machinery in detail to see if there is anything that needs to be maintained or replaced, said company spokesperson David Tsou, adding that the whole process would take 45 days to complete.

Inspections would be conducted at Nan Ya's 174,000 tonne/year polyvinyl chloride (PVC) pipe plant, its 56,400 tonne/year PVC sheeting facility and its construction materials plant in the county in southern Taiwan. The plants would continue operating during the safety checks.

The move was meant to prevent a similar incident on 3 October, when a 17-hour blaze damaged Nan Ya's synthetic paper plant and razed a warehouse.

MRC


Dow names new global manager for performance materials

SINGAPORE (ICIS) -- Dow Chemical has appointed John Buckley as global general manager of its performance materials unit and president of its specialty chemicals subsidiary ANGUS Chemical Co (ANGUS), the company said late on Tuesday.

ANGUS is a wholly-owned subsidiary of Dow Chemical, the company said in a statement.

Buckley most recently served as president of Dow's wholly-owned subsidiary AgroFresh Inc. He has been with Dow Chemical for 25 years.

MRC


South Korea's LG Chem buys 200,000 tonnes naphtha for 2011

SINGAPORE (ICIS) -- South Korea's LG Chem has awarded a term import tender for 200,000 tonnes of naphtha for delivery between January and December 2011, traders said on Wednesday.

The cargoes were done at a discount of $4/tonne (┬2.90/tonne) to Japan quotes CFR (cost & freight), they said.

LG Chem runs two crackers in Daesan and Yeosu, with nameplate capacities of 760,000 tonnes/year and 1m tonnes/year, respectively.

MRC


Korea LG Chem buys remaining stake in LG Dow Polycarbonate

HOUSTON (ICIS) -- South Korean producer LG Chem has bought Dow Chemical's 50% stake in their joint venture, LG Dow Polycarbonate, Dow said on Tuesday.

LG Chem now owns all of LG Dow Polycarbonate, Dow Chemical said. Most likely, LG Dow will operate under the name LG Polycarbonate and continue serving its current customers and markets.

The two companies established the joint venture in early 1999 and started production in 2001, LG-Dow said.

In 2007, the joint venture added a second train to its site at Yeosu, South Korea, increasing capacity to 170,000 tonnes/year, LG-Dow said.

MRC


Post-consumer PET recycler plans new $25 million Indiana facility

(Plasticstoday) -- Polyethylene terephthalate (PET) bottles recycler Perpetual Recycling Solutions will invest more than $25 million to purchase and repurpose an existing 100,000-ft2 facility in Richmond, IN into a new production facility. Founded in 1989 as Pure Tech Plastics LLC, the company converts plastic soda, juice, and water bottles into flake and resin pellets. Perpetual Recycling Solutions is a subsidiary of Chicago's ReThink Recycling Group, which has an additional facility in East Farmingdale, NY.

Perpetual Recycling Solutions says the new facility will convert approximately 130 million lb of post-consumer PET annually, purchasing scrap from a number of sources.

MRC