Polish chemical maker Synthos halts work at Czech sites due to floods

MOSCOW (MRC) -- Polish chemicals maker Synthos halted production at its three facilities in the Czech Republic due to a risk that a pump station on the swollen Vltava river may be flooded, the company said on Monday, said Reuters.

Floods across central Europe forced factories to close, drove thousands from their homes and killed at least seven people. The Czech Republic, where a state of emergency was announced, faces the worst flooding in a decade.

Synthos, one of the largest makers of chemical raw materials in Poland, said the three facilities located in Kralupy, north of Prague, are not directly at risk from floods.

The company said it could not say how long the outage might last.

As per ICIS-MRC Price Report, Synthos has not yet announced its EPS price for June. Suppliers of Polish PS to Ukraine expect prices to remain steady or grow slightly.

Synthos set its EPS price for May at EUR1,460/tonne FCA. In April the value of the Polish polystyrene ranged EUR1,470-1,570/tonne FCA.

Synthos S.A. is one of the largest manufacturers of chemical raw materials in Poland, as well as being Europe’s No. 1 manufacturer of emulsion rubbers and third largest manufacturer of polystyrene for foaming applications.
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PetroChina Dalian refinery blasts injure two-report

MOSCOW (MRC) -- Explosions at a PetroChina refinery in northeastern China has left two people injured and another two missing, said Reuters.

The blasts occurred when two tanks containing residual diesel oil exploded on Sunday afternoon at the PetroChina Dalian refinery. The refinery belongs to Dalian Petrochemical Corp, a unit of PetroChina.

The injured were rushed to hospital for treatment and the fire was put out by the late afternoon.

The Dalian refinery has three crude distillation units with total crude processing capacity of 410,000 barrels per day.

A PetroChina spokesman confirmed an accident had taken place but declined to give more details.

Dalian Petrochemical, in Dalian, Liaoning Province, is one of PetroChina"s main refineries with a refining capacity of 20.5m tonnes/year. The company is able to produce various products including refined oil, lubrication, wax, benzene, polypropylene (PP) and expandable polystyrene (EPS).

PetroChina is one of the largest companies in China and a key player in the country's oil and gas industries. As MRC wrote earlier, PetroChina has overtaken Exxon Mobil as the world"s biggest publicly traded producer of oil. The company announced it pumped 2.4 million barrels a day last year, surpassing Exxon by 100,000 barrels.

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Bemis sells Clysar shrink film division

MOSCOW (MRC) -- Bemis Co. Inc. has sold its shrink film division Clysar to Cove Point Holdings LLC, a privately held investment firm based in New York, said Palsticsnews.

Renamed Clysar LLC, Clysar will operate as a stand-alone, independent company. Its headquarters will move from Oshkosh, Wis., to Clinton, Iowa, the site of the company's extrusion and converting campus. Terms of the deal were not disclosed.

Clysar says it is one of the largest manufacturers or high-performance polyolefin shrink films for packaging applications. Its films are sold through two-step distribution and used strictly in non-barrier applications.
The company was started 50 years ago by DuPont Co. and purchased by Bemis in 2002. It has 300 employees across its plants in Oshkosh and Clinton.

The acquisition is an opportunity for Clysar to "centralize our leadership, technology, development and manufacturing to make us an even stronger force in the shrink film market, said William Hare, general manager of Clysar LLC, in a May 29 news release.

Becoming a privately held company will allow Clysar to better serve critical shrink markets and invest in product innovation, the company announced on its website. Cove Point is wholly owned by its chairman William C. Morris. The firm aims to own, operate and grow manufacturing businesses in the U.S.

Bemis Co. closed a plant in St. Louis Park and will close one in Minneapolis. Both facilities make flexible packaging for food under the Curwood brand, a division of Bemis.

Bemis, based in Neenah, Wis., is one of the country's largest packaging firms and is North America's largest film and sheet manufacturer with annual sales of USD5.3 billion.
MRC

PolyOne sells its vinyl resin business to Mexichem

MOSCOW (MRC) -- PolyOne, a premier provider of specialized polymer materials, services and solutions, has completed the previously-announced sale of its vinyl dispersion, blending and suspension resin assets to Mexichem for USD250 million in cash, according to Hydrocarbonprocessing.

PolyOne said it expects after-tax proceeds of approximately USD150 million and to recognize an after-tax gain on sale of approximately USD140 million.

The sale of PolyOne's last remaining resin production assets marks an important milestone in the company's ongoing specialty transformation that began in 2006, according to top officials.

"This was a natural next step in the evolution of our portfolio and ultimate vision for PolyOne," said Stephen D. Newlin, CEO of PolyOne. "Now more than ever, we are focused on our core business of specialty solutions and unique formulations where we believe we can generate the most value for our customers, associates and shareholders."

Assets transferred in the sale were strictly those related to resin production and included manufacturing plants in Pedricktown, New Jersey; Henry, Illinois; and a resin research facility in Avon Lake, Ohio.

PolyOne continues to own and operate its Geon performance materials and specialty coatings businesses, which produce vinyl-based formulations, plastisols and powder coatings marketed under the Geon brand name.

As MRC wrote earlier, in late 2012 PolyOne Corporation bought Glasforms, Inc., a leading manufacturer of glass and carbon fiber reinforced polymers and advanced composite products.

PolyOne Corporation is a global provider of specialized polymer materials, services, and solutions. PolyOne is a provider of specialized polymer materials, services and solutions with operations in specialty polymer formulations, color and additive systems, polymer distribution and specialty vinyl resins. The company's full-year revenues in 2012 increased 4.5% to USD3.0 billion, compared to USD2.9 billion in 2011.
MRC

BASF completes second REACH phase under EU chemical law

MOSCOW (MRC) -- BASF, the largest diversified chemical company in the world, has successfully completed the second phase of registration for REACH under EU chemical law, reported the company on its site.

REACH stands for the Registration, Evaluation, Authorization and Restriction of Chemicals and represents a fundamental reorganization of chemical law in Europe.

The second phase of registration for chemicals with a production volume between 100 and 1,000 tonnes per year ends on May 31. In this phase, BASF submitted around 550 substance dossiers to the European Chemicals Agency (ECHA) - more than any other company.

BASF also topped the list of companies in the registration process with around 680 substance dossiers in phase 1. By the end of the final transition period in the year 2018, BASF is expecting a total of approximately 3,500 registrations. The total costs of REACH implementation for BASF by the year 2018 will be between EUR500 million and EUR550 million.

"Both the industry and the European Chemicals Agency (ECHA), which was founded a few years ago, have to adapt to the new system. This has been a learning process which is not yet complete. There is still potential for improvements, especially in communication between the registrant and competent authorities - both ECHA and the authorities in the EU member states," says Dr. Karsten Muller, Head of the Chemical Regulations unit at BASF.

REACH applies to all substances currently produced in or imported to the EU. They are registered in three phases with data requirements depending on their production volume (substances above 1,000 tonnes per year; substances above 100 tonnes per year; substances above 1 tonne per year). The implementation of REACH is not limited to registration. The REACH requirements have to be implemented in the production and business processes. This is intended to ensure the safe handling of chemical substances in Europe.

While REACH only applies in Europe, BASF has also set a goal to review all risk assessments worldwide by the year 2020 for substances and mixtures which BASF sells in quantities of more than one ton.

As MRC reported previously, BASF had sales of approximately EUR8.5 billion in 2012 from new products that have been on the market for less than five years. Last year, BASF launched more than 250 new products onto the market.

BASF is the largest diversified chemical company in the world and is headquartered in Ludwigshafen, Germany. BASF 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. BASF had sales of EUR72.1 billion in 2012.
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