Klockner Pentaplast invests in capacity in Asia, Americas, Europe

MOSCOW (MRC) -- The Klockner Pentaplast Group has added to its global production capacity in Asia, the Americas, and Europe, said Plastemart.

The company is investing EUR45.6 mln as part of its 2013 and 2014 expansion plans, which include facilities in Cotia,Brazil; Suzhou, China; Newport/Crumlin, Great Britain; and Santo Tirso, Portugal. Klockner Pentaplast is the only rigid film solutions producer with manufacturing sites located on four continents – Asia, Europe, North America, and South America. KP will add to its UK and European production capacity for polyester films.

Primarily used for food and consumer packaging applications, the new capacity will be located at the company’s Newport/Crumlin, Great Britain, manufacturing facility. The start-up of the state-of-the-art extrusion line is targeted for July 2014 and will add 15 employees. The EUR6 mln investment will add 8,000 metric tons of capacity.

KP opened its first Chinese production site in the Suzhou Industrial Park (Suzhou, China) in July 2013. The site is producing packaging films for the growing domestic Chinese and Asian markets. The first phase of operations has focused on transverse-direction oriented shrink-label films and houses state-of-the-art production equipment, high-tech production control systems, and an extensive laboratory. The site has increased Klockner Pentaplast’s global shrink-films capacity by 6,600 metric tons to meet double-digit shrink-sleeve growth in Asia.

The EUR22.5 Mio investment employs 76 people. In Spring 2013, KP added 8,000 metric tons of polyester film capacity to the company’s Santo Tirso, Portugal, manufacturing facility. The EUR5.5 mln nvestment supports KP’s growing European food and consumer packaging films markets. The expansion added 25 employees.

Klockner Pentaplast makes films for pharmaceutical, medical device, food, electronics, and general-purpose thermoformed packaging, as well as printing and specialty applications. The company has sales of more than USD1.4 billion, more than 3,000 employees, and 17 plants.
MRC

MOSCOW (MRC) -- Borealis and Borouge, leading providers of chemical and innovative plastics solutions, announce the launch of Fibremod - their new product family of fibre-based compound polypropylene (PP) innovations for the automotive and the appliance industry. Connected to the launch of Fibremod, Borealis announces the start up of a new long glass fibre line in Monza, Italy, said the company in its press-release.

The Fibremod family of engineered short (SGF) and long glass fibre (LGF) compounds consolidates the Xmod and Nepol glass fibre brands under one common name. This portfolio evolution is done to streamline the product brand portfolio and to build the stage for the innovation pipeline of all future, fibre-based materials.

Fibremod innovations are supporting the automotive and appliance value chain in achieving its weight-saving and process cost-saving targets. The customised glass fibre reinforced PP solutions are at the cutting-edge of innovation, bringing lightweight, extra strength and impact performance to a wide range of applications. They also support more environmentally-considerate production by reducing processing temperatures and energy requirements when replacing alternative solutions such as polyamide (PA).

Borealis’ proprietary Borstar process technology enables Borealis and Borouge to tailor the highly engineered PP compounds to required stiffness aspects in order to meet the stringent needs of individual customer projects. For example, a unique, high performance glass fibre Fibremod solution was behind Volkswagen’s (VW) decision to become the first original equipment manufacturer (OEM) to switch from glass reinforced polyamide (PA) to SGF PP from Borealis for its air intake manifolds (1,4/63kW and 1,6l/77kW engines). The use of Fibremod created a 15% weight reduction, superior acoustic performance and greater production cost efficiency for VW and its Tier One supplier.

Borealis has 20 years experience in developing and producing this type of polypropylene material and has developed its own proprietary processing technology for production. This technology leads to high quality products in terms of fibre impregnation and the wide possibility of fibre and matrix combinations for tailor-made solutions. The product portfolio covers glass fibre contents from 20% to 60%, with grades customised to provide for the highest stiffness and strength at elevated temperatures, with outstanding energy absorption in high speed deformation. Typically PP-LGF grades have excellent flowability for smooth processing and uniform shrinkage behaviour.

As MRC wrote before, Borealis and Borouge, amongst the leading providers of innovative, value-creating plastics solutions, have introduced a new grade of polypropylene (PP) specified for use in lightweight bumper applications for two new Renault automotive platforms.
MRC

MOSCOW (MRC) -- Higher feedstock prices have led to increased polyvinyl chloride (PVC) prices in Europe. September exports PVC prices for CIS countries grew accordingly, as per ICIS-MRC Price report.

September contract ethylene prices in Europe were agreed by EUR50/tonne higher from August. Given higher prices for one of the main feedstocks, European producers announced a need to raise September PVC prices by EUR10-30/tonne for the CIS markets.

Negotiations on deals for September shipments of European PVC began in late August. Some companies managed to limit the price rise by EUR10-15/tonne. Others started negotiating deals in early September, but prices were already heard by EUR20-30/tonne higher from August.

Overall, deals for September shipments of European PVC to the CIS countries were concluded in the range of EUR785-855/tonne FCA. Resin supply from some producers, particularly, the Hungarian BorsodChem (the plant has been underloaded because of technical issues) is still tight.
MRC

MOSCOW (MRC) -- Belarusian low density polyethylene (LDPE) rose by 13% in domestic trades on Friday, 6 September, according to ICIS-MRC Price report.

The domestic trades for LDPE were held in Belarus on Friday, 6 September. Tight supply and the forthcoming scheduled outage for maintenance at the domestic producer Polymir (concern Nafthan) were the main causes of a major price rise.

LDPE 158 were put up for auction in the domestic trades. Prices at trades rose to Brb14.195m/tonne FCA Novopolotsk, excluding VAT, having started from Brb12.550m/tonne. Local companies were actively replenishing their inventories in anticipation of a long shutdown at Polymir.

The scheduled outage at Polymir was planned from 1 October for three weeks. According to unofficial information, the company will shut down the plant because of tight feedstock supply.
MRC

MOSCOW (MRC) -- Four CB&I technologies were selected by China's CNOOC Oil & Petrochemicals Co. the second expansion phase of their refinery and petrochemical complex at Huizhou in Guangdong Province, according to Hydrocarbonprocessing.

This award includes the first license in China of CB&I’s recently acquired E-Gas gasification technology. The E-Gas gasification technology can be used to generate clean synthesis gas from coal and petroleum coke for use in power generation, hydrogen and steam for refineries, and a range of products from fertilizer to methanol to synthetic natural gas (SNG) in the coal-to-chemical industry.

CB&I’s scope of work includes the license and process engineering design of the Lummus olefins conversion technology (OCT) for the production of 250,000 tpy of propylene and the CDHDS+ hydrodesulfurization technology for the processing of 2.4 million tpy of FCC gasoline to produce 10 ppm ultra-low sulfur gasoline.

The award also involves CB&I's E-Gas technology for the gasification of 1.7 million tpy of coal to produce syngas for hydrogen and chemicals production at the refinery, as well as the vacuum residuum desulfurization technology (VRDS) from Chevron Lummus Global for the processing of 3.7 million tpy of vacuum residue.

As MRC reported earlier, Chinese Company CNOOC has recently selected INEOS Technologies Innovene S HDPE process for their new project in Huizhou, Guangdong Province, China. The 400 KTA Innovene S HDPE plant will produce a wide range of polyethylene grades to serve the growing HDPE demand in China. These grades include commodity grades made from Ziegler and Chrome catalysts as well as specialty grades such as bimodal PE 100 pipe products. Besides, the company has also selected the LyondellBasell Spherizone technology for a 400 KT per year polypropylene (PP) plant planned to be built in Huizhou, China.

China National Offshore Oil Corporation (CNOOC Group Chinese) is one of the major national oil companies of China. It is the third-largest national oil company in the People's Republic of China after CNPC (parent of PetroChina), and China Petrochemical Corporation (parent of Sinopec).The CNOOC Group focuses on the exploitation, exploration and development of crude oil and natural gas offshore of China.
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