Solvay 2Q net profit falls

MOSCOW (MRC) -- Belgian chemical and plastics maker Solvay SA (SOLB.BT) Wednesday flagged a poor business outlook after recording a 38% fall in second-quarter net profit, said The Wall Street Journal.

"Solvay continued to face challenging trading conditions during the second quarter," the company said in a statement. "While we see some weak signs of improvement, this has yet to be confirmed in our order book," it said.

The company also appointed Karim Hajjar as chief financial officer. Outgoing CFO, Bernard de Laguiche, is stepping down for personal interests and will stay on as a non-executive board member, Solvay said.

Second-quarter net profit fell to EUR148 million (USD196 million) from EUR239 million a year earlier. Temporary destocking and customers delaying investment decisions had weighed on several businesses, the company said.

Solvay said it is confident in generating a Rebitda--recurring earnings before taxes, interest, depreciation and amortization--in 2013 that's comparable to last year.

Rebitda was EUR2.07 billion in 2012. It was EUR487 million in the second quarter, down 14% against an especially strong figure in the comparable period last year.

Meanwhile, the company said it expected to close its joint venture with Ineos by the end of this year, pending anti-trust clearance.

Solvay S.A. is a Belgian chemical company founded in 1863, with its head office in Neder-Over-Heembeek, Brussels, Belgium. Solvay Chemicals is a world leading producer of essential chemicals including soda ash, caustic soda, hydrogen peroxide and special chemicals such as fluorinated products, ultra-fine fillers, high purity barium and strontium.
MRC

MOSCOW (MRC) -- China's Xinjiang Tianye Group is in plans to start a new monoethylene glycol (MEG) plant, according to Apic-online.

A Polymerupdate source in China informed that the plant is planned to be started in August 2014.

To be located in XInjiang province, China, the plant will have a production capacity of 250,000 mt/year.

We remind that, as MRC reported earlier, Xinjiang Tianye Group Co started up a new 400,000 tonne/year carbide-based polyvinyl chloride (PVC) plant in China's northwestern Xinjiang province in 2010 and achieved on-spec production on 6 October. With the start-up of the new plant, Xinjiang Tianye’s PVC production capacity has increased from 700,000 tonnes/year to 1.1m tonnes/year, making it the largest PVC producer in China.
MRC

MOSCOW (MRC) -- Styron (Hong Kong) Limited and its affiliate companies in Asia Pacific has announce price increases for all polystyrene grades, reported the company in its press release.

Effective immediately, or as existing contract terms allow, the prices for the products listed below will increase as follows:

- STYRON general purpose polystyrene grades (GPPS) by USD40 per tonne;
- STYRON and STYRON A-TECH high-impact polystyrene grades (HIPS) by USD30 per tonne.

"The price increase responds to the rising costs associated with the manufacturing of polystyrene grades in Asia Pacific." said Samer Al Jabi, Global Product Manager for Polystyrene.

As MRC informed previously, Styron Europe GmbH and Ravago S.A. have recently announced that they have signed a definitive agreement under which Styron's Expandable Polystyrene (EPS) business will be sold to RP Compounds, a subsidiary of Ravago S.A., for an undisclosed sum. The sale includes the EPS manufacturing facility in Schkopau, Germany, as well as related intellectual property and the SCONAPOR brand. The transaction is subject to regulatory approval and completion of customary conditions.

Styron is a leading global materials company and manufacturer of plastics, latex and rubber. Styron"s technology is used by customers in industries such as home appliances, automotive, building & construction, carpet, consumer electronics, consumer goods, electrical & lighting, medical, packaging, paper & paperboard, rubber goods and tires. Styron had approximately USD 5.5 billion in revenue in 2012, with 20 manufacturing sites around the world.
MRC

MOSCOW (MRC) - Dow Chemical Co will consider selling its paint, construction and chlorine businesses as it joins industry rivals in shedding units vulnerable to commodity price swings, said Reuters.

Dow, the largest U.S. chemical maker by sales, reported a better-than-expected quarterly profit on Thursday due to strong margins in its plastics business and higher sales of pesticides to farmers. Its shares rose 1.5 percent in morning trading.

Like competitor DuPont, the company is pushing hard into the agricultural sector, where sales have been booming on year-round demand for seeds and pesticides for the crops needed to feed an expanding global population. DuPont said on Tuesday that it planned to exit its titanium paint pigments business to focus on its agricultural unit, where higher sales helped to boost quarterly profit.

Dow Chemical has already divested non-core businesses worth about USD8 billion in revenue since 2009, and plans this year to close the previously announced sale of its polypropylene licensing and catalyst business and its plastics additives unit.

"One-third of our business is in low-cost commodity, cyclical-type business, where my competition is state-owned enterprises," Dow Chemical Chief Executive Andrew Liveris said. "My competition is racing to commoditize my products. That means I have to keep working them out of the portfolio and keep moving to areas of high-margin, high-technology."

On a post-earnings conference call with analysts, Liveris identified the company's Epoxy, or industrial paint, business as a candidate for divestment, as well its European building and construction and commodity chlorine derivatives units. "Here, we see the need for more dramatic interventions," he said. "These businesses are in the fix/take-action mode, which includes exploring all possibilities - including joint venturing or divesting them."

Dow Chemical spokeswoman Rebecca Bentley said the three businesses combined contributed USD6 billion in annual revenue.

We remind that a federal judge in Kansas City, Kansas, ordered Dow Chemical Co to pay USD1.2 billion in a price-fixing case involving chemicals used to make foam products in cars, furniture and packaging, according to court documents. Dow was one of several chemical company defendants named in a 2005 class action lawsuit alleging a conspiracy to fix urethane chemical prices, but it was the only defendant not to settle.

The Dow Chemical Company is an American multinational chemical corporation. As of 2007, it is the second-largest chemical manufacturer in the world by revenue (after BASF) and as of February 2009, the third-largest chemical company in the world by market capitalization (after BASF and DuPont). Dow is a large producer of plastics, including polystyrene, polyurethane, polyethylene, polypropylene, and synthetic rubber.
MRC