Sinopec Shanghai restarted ACN plant in China

MOSCOW (MRC) -- Sinopec Shanghai Petrochemical has restarted its acrylonitrile (ACN) plant, reported Apic-online.

A Polymerupdate source in China informed that the plant resumed operations on December 25, 2013. It was shut on November 20, 2013 for maintenance turnaround.

Located in Shanghai, China , the plant has a production capacity of 130,000 mt/year.

Besides, top Asian refiner Sinopec Corp won initial approval last month from China's top economic planner for a plan to build a USD10-billion refinery and petrochemical complex in Shanghai. Sinopec has started formal planning for the 400,000 barrels-per-day refinery and a 1 million tonnes-per-year ethylene project in a plan to curb pollution by shifting an old plant to Shanghai's southern edge.

As MRC informed previously, Formosa Plastics Corp (FPC) is likely to shut an acrylonitrile (ACN) plant for maintenance turnaround in early February 2014. Located in Mailiao, Taiwan, the pant has a production capacity of 280,000 mt/year.

Sinopec Corp. is one of the largest scale integrated energy and chemical companies with upstream, midstream and downstream operations. Its refining and ethylene capacity ranks No.2 and No.4 globally. The Company has 30,000 sales and distribution networks of oil products and chemical products, its service stations are now ranked third largest in the world.
MRC

MOSCOW (MRC) -- The pressure in the Russian market of bottle PET chips will grow in 2014. Competition in the domestic market will increase on the back of growing production capacities, rise in the import duties in Europe and a number of other factors, said MRC analyst Igor Gryshchenko.

Polief (SIBUR group) will start the second line of 90,000 tonnes/year PET production in 2014, which increases the total plant's capacities to 210,000 tonnes/year. Total capacities of PET production in Russia will increase to 620,000 tonnes, compared with 540,000 tonnes/years in 2013.

Total calculated PET consumption in Russia is traditionally about 600,000 tonnes/year, but according to our estimates this level would not be reached in 2013. For the first time in the history of the nominal capacities of PET production in Russia exceed the total consumption in the country, forcing Russian producers to increase exports to displace foreign producers. However, these plans will not be easy to implement.

European Union raises import duties on Russian PET from 1 January. According to EU Regulation number 978/2012 (from 25 October 2012 on the application of the scheme of generalized tariff preferences and the abolition of the EU Council of the EU Regulation 732/2008) import duties for the Russian PET chips will be raised by 3.5% to 6.5%.
At the same time the European Union clears duty to 0% for Korean producers of PET chips from 1 January, from 1.8% in the second half of 2013. These measures significantly reduce the attractiveness of export markets in Europe in 2014 and force to reorient to the domestic market of Russia and CIS countries. There are not many options for export in the CIS markets.

Relatively large Ukrainian market (PET consumption was 163,000 tonnes in 2012) has an access to the sea and local companies buy cheaper and high quality Chinese PET. The deliveries to Kazakhstan are not economically unprofitable due to the long and expensive logistics (delivery from the Central Region to Kazakhstan may be around EUR180/tonne).

The possibility to increase the share in Belarus is more probable. Mogilevkhimvolokno stays idle at the moment, the company promised to resume production on 15 January 2014. However, according to unconfirmed information, the company may postpone the launch indefinitely due to low profitability of bottle grade PET production. This may be a good opportunity for Russian plants.

Exports of Russian PET decreased twofold to 20,000 tonnes in the first eleven months of the year, compared with the same period in the previous year. Import substitution also has some difficulties. Large converters such as Retal, Europlast, Coca-Cola and Pepsi will not completely refuse from buying Chinese material because of the diversification of supplies. Besides in 2013 the price Chinese PET chips with delivery to Russia was lower than spot prices of Russian PET.

At the same time, in 2013 the import duty was reduced by 1% (from 5% to 4%), which contributed to procurement in Asia. These factors will be taken into account when forming the contracts of Russian and Asian PET in 2014.
Besides PET preform PCO 1881 will be reduced in weigh, there is also a government pressure in the beer market, which also affects the total consumption (according to Rosstat, beer production fell by 8% in the first eleven months of the year, compared to the same period in 2012).

On the other hand, PET consumption per capita in Russia remains low relative to Western countries and is 4.1 kg per person, which is more than two times lower than in the United States. However, there is a question of the market growth rate, which contributes to the stable production work.
MRC

MOSCOW (MRC) -- Dear readers of MRC!

On this Christmas, the team of MRC wishes everyone happiness and prosperity on the personal and professional life.

Thank you for staying with us in 2013. It has been a pleasure helping you reach your goals, and we look forward to serving you again in the new year.

During this year, we provided reliable analytics on any changes of the polymers market in the CIS countries. We want to take a chance on this so special time to give all our readers and clients the respective thanks for your preference and trust.

We wish you a wonderful new year filled with abundance, joy, and treasured moments. We hope 2014 is a year of great happiness and success for you.

Best wishes,
MRC staff.

We will be back from holidays on 8 January, 2014.
MRC

MOSCOW (MRC) -- Westlake Chemical Corporation announced that it has started-up its new chlor-alkali plant located at its vinyls manufacturing complex in Geismar, Louisiana, said Marketwatch.

This new chlor-alkali plant has the capacity to produce 350,000 electrochemical units (ECU's) annually and utilizes state of the art membrane technology. The plant is adjacent to the existing vinyl chloride monomer (VCM) and polyvinyl chloride (PVC) facilities at the Geismar complex and has added approximately 70 full-time positions at the site. At its peak over 2000 constructions personnel were utilized in building the new plant.

When combined with the existing membrane chlor-alkali capacity at the Calvert City, Kentucky vinyls complex, the company will have the ability to produce up to 650,000 ECU's annually at these two sites to meet ongoing customer needs. The addition of this new plant is consistent with Westlake's vertical integration strategy for its vinyls business and will allow the company to continue to expand and optimize the vinyls chain, including the anticipated addition of 200mm pounds per year of PVC at the company's Calvert City PVC plant during the second quarter of 2014.
Westlake Chemical Corporation (WLK).

As MRC wrote before, Westlake Chemical has agreed to acquire the PVC pipe and fittings unit of Compagnie de Saint-Gobain SA's CertainTeed Corp. for USD175 million. CertainTeed's pipe and foundation group produces PVC pipe and fittings for municipalities, water wells, mining, agriculture and irrigation.

Westlake Chemical Corporation is a manufacturer and supplier of petrochemicals, polymers and building products with headquarters in Houston, Texas. The company's range of products includes: ethylene, polyethylene, styrene, propylene, caustic, VCM, PVC resin and PVC building products including pipe and specialty components, windows and fence.
MRC