Ineos and Sinopec YPC sign joint venture agreement

MOSCOW (MRC) -- INEOS and Sinopec YPC have signed the Joint Venture Agreement and Articles of Association forming a 50%/50% Joint Venture Company to be based in Nanjing China, reported Ineos on its site.

The Joint Venture, which is to be called INEOS YPC Phenol (Nanjing) Company Ltd is set to build the largest phenol acetone plant in China, due to complete at the end of 2016. It will have a total investment of approximately USD0.5bn (RMB3.15 bn) and is expected to be operational by the end of 2016.

This is INEOS’ largest investment in China and YPC’s eighth joint venture.

The plant will be based on INEOS’s proprietary phenol technology and Sinopec’s proprietary cumene technology. It will benefit from Sinopec’s local feedstock and personnel advantages and will generate annual sales revenue of around USD0.8 bn (RMB 4.9 bn). It will promote the upgrading of the chemical industry in Nanjing.

"Establishing INEOS YPC Phenol (Nanjing) Company Ltd following the signing of the Joint Venture Agreement is the major step forwards for this important project. We are delighted to have Sinopec YPC as our long-term strategic partner as we build the largest Phenol facility in China. When completed this new world scale plant will bring considerable value to our customers in the region. The partnership is an important development for INEOS Phenol and for INEOS in China." said Harry Deans, CEO of INEOS Phenol.

The annual capacity of the new plant will be at least 400,000 tonnes of phenol and 250,000 tonnes of acetone. It will also include 550,000 tonnes/year of cumene capacity.

Phenol and acetone are important organic chemical intermediates. They are widely used in the industries of phenolic resin, caprolactam, bisphenol A, salicylic acid, fibres, plastic, synthetic rubber, pharmaceuticals, agrochemical, dyes, coatings, leather, and epoxy resins.

As MRC wrote previously, INEOS Nitriles and Tianjin Bohai Chemical Industry Group Corporation have signed their intention to establish a 50/50 JV, to build and operate a world scale acrylonitrile plant to be located in Tianjin, China. It is expected that the plant, which will be designed using the latest INEOS process and catalyst technology, will be completed by the end of 2016. The initial annual capacity of the new facility will be 260,000 tonnes of acrylonitrile with an expectation of possible future expansion, in line with growing demand across Asia.

INEOS Group Limited is a privately owned multinational chemicals company consisting of 15 standalone business units, headquartered in Rolle, Switzerland and with its registered office in Lyndhurst, United Kingdom. It is the fourth largest chemicals company in the world measured by revenues (after BASF, Dow Chemical and LyondellBasell) and the largest privately owned company in the United Kingdom.
MRC

MOSCOW (MRC) -- Westlake Chemical Corporation has reported net income for the three months ended December 31, 2013 of USD171.0 million, or USD2.54 per diluted share, compared to net income of USD95.3 million, or USD1.42 per diluted share, reported for the fourth quarter of 2012, according to the company's report.

Net sales for the three months ended December 31, 2013 of USD951.6 million increased USD150.6 million compared to net sales of USD801.0 million in the same period of 2012, primarily due to higher sales prices for polyethylene, styrene and PVC resin and higher sales volumes for most of our major products.

Income from operations was USD257.6 million for the fourth quarter of 2013 compared to USD156.2 million for the fourth quarter of 2012. The increase in income from operations in the fourth quarter of 2013 was primarily a result of higher polyethylene and PVC resin sales prices as well as lower ethane costs, which were partially offset by higher propane costs as compared to the same period in 2012.

For the year ended December 31, 2013, net income was USD610.4 million, or USD9.09 per diluted share, an increase in net income of USD224.8 million, or USD3.34 per diluted share, from 2012 net income of USD385.6 million, or USD5.75 per diluted share.

Net sales for the year ended December 31, 2013 increased USD188.5 million to USD3,759.5 million compared to net sales for 2012 of USD3,571.0 million, primarily due to higher sales prices for most products, higher sales volumes for styrene, caustic and PVC resin and sales contributed by the specialty PVC pipe business, which was acquired in May 2013.

Income from operations was USD953.5 million for the year ended December 31, 2013 as compared to USD615.4 million for 2012, an increase of USD338.1 million. Income from operations benefited mainly from higher olefins and vinyls integrated product margins, predominantly due to a significant decrease in ethane costs as average industry ethane prices decreased 34.3% in 2013 as compared to 2012. The increase in income from operations in 2013 was partially offset by the lost production and unabsorbed costs associated with the planned turnaround and expansion of one of the Lake Charles, Louisianaаethylene units in the first quarter of 2013.

Albert Chao, President and Chief Executive Officer, said, "We are pleased to report a strong finish to a record year for Westlake. We continue to benefit from lower-cost, ethane-based ethylene production resulting from increased North American natural gas liquids production, which we expect to continue for the foreseeable future. Our Olefins segment achieved record annual income from operations while our Vinyls business continues to improve, as we see gradual recovery in the construction industry. In 2013, we completed the expansion of one of our ethylene units at our Lake Charles, Louisiana site in the first quarter and also started-up our new world scale Geismar, Louisiana chlor-alkali plant in the fourth quarter. The completion of these two projects and the planned conversion to ethane feedstock and expansion of our ethylene and PVC capacity at our Calvert City, Kentucky facility in the second quarter of 2014 are expected to improve the profitability of our Vinyls business."

As MRC informed before, Westlake Chemical held a dedication ceremony on 19 February 2014 for its new chlor-alkali plant in Geismar, Louisiana. 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.

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

MOSCOW (MRC) -- PLACYD, is an EU funded consortium of industrial and academic collaborators and led by Arkema, a France-based chemical manufacturer, will establish a dedicated material manufacturing facility that allows the production of block copolymers meeting the rigorous standards required for their use in industry as nanolithographic templates, as per Arkema's press release.

PLACYD brings together leading researchers and industries to allow for the first time the integration of synthesis through to wafer scale production and system/device characterization.

Arkema hosted the kick-off meeting of the PLACYD project on February 18th in Paris, aiming to set up a full European Ecosystem dedicated to DSA technology with the support of key players of the semiconductor industry.

Part of the Seventh Framework European Programme (FP7) and funded by ENIAC JU (European Technology Platform for Nanoelectronics), this project will be led by Arkema for 3 years. Its aim is to develop and bring DSA materials to industrial maturity, as well as processes and integration schemes. It will contribute to establishing specific DSA design rules and developing specific software for device manufacture. Metrology and inspection requirements in the sub-10 nm range will be defined and implemented in next generation tools, and lastly, a full integration demonstration activity will be performed based at CEA-Leti to assess the efficiency of the whole solution.

Arkema has been developing Block Copolymer technology for decades for various applications. Based on this technology, the chemicals manufacturer has developed nanolithography materials in partnership with the CEA-Leti Institute and the LCPO laboratory. Through the PLACYD project, they will bring their know-how to the semiconductor industry. With the help of the PLACYD Consortium partners, a dedicated materials line will be set up on the Arkema Research Center site in Lacq (France) with the aim of delivering precisely defined, high purity, and highly reproducible materials on an industrial scale in order to enable supply to the semiconductor industry.

Meanwhile, new materials will be developed and optimized for next generation electronic chips.

As MRC wrote before, in November 2013, Arkema officially started its new 60,000 MTY emulsion polymers facility on its Changshu platform. The plant, part of Arkema’s Coating Resins business unit, will serve customers in the Asia Pacific region with a full line of waterborne emulsion polymers for coatings and adhesives applications.

Arkema with annual revenue of EUR6.4 billion is a leading European supplier of chlorochemicals and PVC. Kynar and Kynar Flex are registered trademarks of Arkema Inc.
MRC