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MOSCOW (MRC) -- Styron, the global materials company and manufacturer of plastics, latex and rubber, has announced two new additions to its SPRINTAN rubber range, which have been tailored to meet the evolving needs of the global tire industry, reported the company on its site.
Styron’s SPRINTAN rubber portfolio offers an array of high performance solutions to fit specific tire industry needs. The range includes rubber grades with enhanced wet grip and wear performance, as well as grades that provide a good balance between traction and rolling resistance.
The newest members of the SPRINTAN family are the SPRINTAN SLR 3402 and SLR 4502, two next generation solutions adjusted for improved low-temperature performance. SPRINTAN SLR 3402 and SLR 4502 offer the combined benefits found in existing SPRINTAN grades, namely excellent low rolling resistance, as well as other significant advantages, such as reduced stiffness at low temperatures boosting snow grip potential in winter tread application.
Both solutions can be blended with other polymers, offering customers greater flexibility.
Olivier Veron, Marketing Manager of Styron’s Rubber Business explains: "The microstructure of these new grades clearly differentiates them from our existing rubber portfolio and can be positioned as best-in-class among our products of non-oil extended grades."
As MRC reported earlier, Styron Europe GmbH and its affiliate companies in Europe have recently announced price increases for all polystyrene (PS) and copolymer grades in February, as follows:
- STYRON general purpose polystyrene grades (GPPS), STYRON and STYRON A-TECH high impact polystyrene grades (HIPS) by EUR40/tonne;
- MAGNUM ABS resins by EUR50/tonne;
- TYRIL SAN resins by EUR40/tonne.
Styron is a leading global materials company and manufacturer of plastics, latex and rubber, dedicated to collaborating with customers to deliver innovative and sustainable solutions. StyronпїЅs 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, and 2100 employees.
MRC
Styron rubber treads the road to innovation, launching two new SPRINTAN grades
January PET imports to Russia surged by 68%
MOSCOW (MRC) -- Imports of polyethylene terephthalate (PET) into Russia surged in January 2014 by 68% from December 2013 and totalled 25,500 tonnes, which was abnormally high for the imported PET market at this time of the year, according to MRC ScanPlast.
January PET imports are traditionally significantly lower than in December, which is usually explained by long New Year holidays and sluggish buying activity in the market of finished products at the beginning of the year. Although, the situation was absolutely different this year. Some market players explained such importers' behaviour by prolonged outages and force majeures at Russian plants in late 2014. Two plants (Kaliningrad Alco-Naphtha and Solnechnogorsk Senezh) were idle during virtually the whole November and a part of December, the companies also anticipated a force majeure for shipments of material from Ufa in early 2014.
Pricing of Chinese plants only added to all these factors. In dollar terms, December PET prices in China were at their bottom for the year of 2013, which gave a good opportunity for buying in advance of long holidays in Russia and the Lunar New Year in China in late January.
In rouble terms, given the old exchange rate (about Rb32,25 per USD1), prices of Asian imports in the Central region should have been Rb62,000/tonne CPT Moscow, including VAT. At the same time, the devaluation of the national currency negatively affected prices of January imports for Russian buyers.
Imports of Chinese PET totalled 19,500 tonnes. Imports of Lithuanian PET chips have been high for the second consecutive month. The overall imports of Lithuanian PET totalled 2,200 tonnes in January.
MRC
January SPVC imports to Russia fell to a record low for the last four years
MOSCOW (MRC) -- Russian companies have reduced imports of suspension polyvinyl chloride (SPVC) to a record low for the last four years amid weak seasonal demand for finished products and higher prices in foreign markets, according to MRC DataScope.
January SPVC imports into Russia fell to 11,600 tonnes, the bottom level since February 2010. The main reason for the slump in imports was weak demand for finished products and higher prices in foreign markets, particularly, in the US and China.
Imports of suspension dropped from all countries-importers. Thus, PVC imports from the United States fell to 6,100 tonnes from 7,100 tonnes in December 2013 (the overall imports from the US totalled 179,200 tonnes in 2013). Shipments of acetylene PVC from China decreased to a record 1,700 tonnes last month from 5,000 tonnes in December 2013 (the overall imports of acetylene resins totalled 136,300 tonnes last year).
The January devaluation of the Russian rouble and weak demand for finished products from PVC will restrict imports of resin to the local market in the next couple of months.
As reported earlier, weaker demand for finished products from SPVC in 2013 led to a reduction of 11% in imports in comparison with 2012 to 367,000 tonnes.
MRC
PC exports from Russia fell by 90% in January
The reason for such a sharp reduction in PC shipments from Russia was a significant decrease in the China's purchases, which is the key buyer of Russian PC. Export volumes of Russian PC depend mostly on the situation in the Asian markets.
For example, since 2012 the share of exports to China accounted for almost 80% of total Russian PC exports and totaled about 38,600 tonnes. One of the reasons record low exports was the celebration of the Lunar New Year in Asia from the late January to early February.
Export volumes usually shrink a week before the holidays; plant are shut for maintenances and sales operations are frozen. But this year, slump in consumer activity in the Asian markets was seen long before the holidays.
Russian PC is in high demand from local producers due to the lower prices and higher quality, compared with local material. The most popular blends of Russian PC exported to China are PC for injection moulding technology.
MRC
Poliom resumed PP shipments to domestic market
MOSCOW (MRC) -- The Omsk plant of polypropylene (PP) Poliom (part of Titan group) resumed shipments of polymer to the domestic market on Monday, 17 February, said MRC analysts with reference to the company's sourses.
On February 9, Poliom had to suspend its PP production because of abnormal cold. The plant resumed PP production on 14 Friday, after the conducted engineering works, and the company started to ship its products to the domestic market on Monday, 17 February.
Poliom produced about 13,400 tonnes of PP in January 2014. The overall PP output totalled slightly more than 116,000 tonnes in less than a year of operations in 2013.
LLC "Poliom" was founded on 14 May, 2005 for the construction of the polypropylene (PP) plant within the petrochemical cluster project "PARK: regional agro-industrial clusters." The plant was built on Basell technology, the supplier of technological equipment was Tecnimont. The product range consists of 78 PP grades (homopolymer PP, statistical and block copolymers).Полио
MRC