Formosa Plastics to shut caustic soda plant in Taiwan

MOSCOW (MRC) -- Taiwan's Formosa Plastics Corp (FPC), the nation’s largest producer of polyvinyl chloride, is in plans to shut a caustic soda plant for maintenance turnaround, according to Apic-online.

A Polymerupdate source in Taiwan informed that the plant is likely to be shut in H1, 2014. However, a definite schedule for the closure could not be confirmed.

Located in Mailiao, Taiwan, the plant has a production capacity of 1.3 million dry metric tonne (DMT)/year.

As MRC reported earlier, FPC is considering building a factory to make 1.2 million tonnes of ethylene a year in the US state of Louisiana, using shale gas. The company did not disclose how much it might invest because it needs to conduct further studies to evaluate the project. The company plans to process ethylene and propylene in the US instead of shipping these products to Asia, because of the high cost of transporting them.

Formosa Petrochemical is involved primarily in the business of refining crude oil, selling refined petroleum products and producing and selling olefins (including ethylene, propylene, butadiene and BTX) from its naphtha cracking operations. Formosa Petrochemical is also the largest olefins producer in Taiwan and its olefins products are mostly sold to companies within the Formosa Group. Among the company's chemical products are paraxylene (PX), phenyl ethylene, acetone and pure terephthalic acid (PTA). The company"s plastic products include acrylonitrile butadiene styrene (ABS) resins, polystyrene (PS), polypropylene (PP) and panlite (PC).
MRC

MOSCOW (MRC) - LLC "TitanPlast" (Novopolotsk, Belarus) launched the first in Belarus line of production of cellular polycarbonate (PC), reported the company to MRC.

Italian OMIPA was the supplier of the equipment and technology. The main supplier of feedstock will be Sabic Innovative Plastics, which has more than 75 years of experience in innovative developments in the application of engineering plastics.

The production capacity of the first stage will be 4,000 tonnes/year. The product portfolio includes the most popular in the market cellular sheets of width 2100 mm, length 12 m and a thickness from 4 to 20 mm.

Products are produced under the brand name TitanPlast. Prospective product markets are domestic market, CIS countries, Europe.

Cellular PC sheets are light transmitting, shockproof, heat-saving and sound absorbing panels with multiple longitudinal partitions or walls. They are used for roofing and facade glazing industrial and civil buildings for various purposes. PC sheets are most often used to cover greenhouses, conservatories, and sports courts, halls, swimming pools, stadiums. This type of product is produced by sheet extrusion.

MRC

MOSOCW (MRC) -- Germany-based Treofan, a biaxially-oriented polypropylene (BOPP) film maker, has announced that it will consolidate its technical film business into a new electronics business unit, said Plasticsnews.

The company’s capacitor film business and its new TreoPore microporous separator films business had previously been managed separately from one another. Mark Neville will become the executive vice president of the new combined group.

"This consolidation is another step forward in our realignment of internal structures and processes around customers’ needs and wishes," said Peter Vanacker, CEO of Treofan, based in Raunheim, Germany. "We’ve combined our broad spectrum of expertise in the area of technical films into a single business unit, which will enable us to work even more intensively on developing innovative solutions together with our partners in the electronics industry."

Recently the company also created separate business units for packaging films, labeling films, and tobacco films. These are headed by Yvo van Vliet, executive vice president of commercial operations. We remind that Treofan Group aimed for considerable global growth in the coming years.

Treofan Group is a global technology leader for biaxially oriented polypropylene film (BOPP). Treofan, which develops and sells BOPP films in over 90 countries around the world, has already production facilities in Europe and the Americas. Company offers the most diverse and comprehensive product range within the industry, providing packaging, label and tobacco film applications as well as films for electronic devices, such as capacitors. Treofan employs around 1,100 people and operates four production sites in Germany, Italy, and Mexico.
MRC

MOSCOW (MRC) -- Oil Refineries and Petroleum Industries (ORPIC, Sohar, Oman) has awarded a contract to CB&I (The Woodlands, Texas, USA) to provide ethylene technology and front end engineering and design (FEED) services for its Liwa Plastics Project in Sohar, Oman, said Plasteurope.

CB&I said the contract, valued at more than USD 40m (EUR 29m), includes FEED services for a grassroots 800,000 tonnes/year ethylene plant and two polymer plants, as well as a pygas unit, MTBE and butene-1 unit, a gas plant and pipeline and related off-sites and utilities.

The ethylene plant will use CB&I's technology, including its SRT cracking heaters and its recovery section design, featuring low pressure separation and mixed refrigeration to minimise investment costs.

ORPIC, which is a subsidiary of Oman Oil Co, said last year that the Liwa Plastics Project was expected to require a USD 3.6 bn investment and include plants for PE and PP. Start-up is expected in 2018.

ORPIC was created in 2011 from the integration of Oman Refineries and Petrochemicals Co, Aromatics Oman and Oman Polypropylene. ORPIC is owned by the Government of the Sultanate of Oman and Oman Oil Company SAOC, the trading company created by the Government of the Sultanate of Oman for managing investments in the energy sector. We remind that in late 2012 Orpic announced that its production of world class high quality polypropylene homopolymer at Sohar plant has crossed 1 million tonnes. This was a significant milestone for the polypropylene (PP) plant in Sohar, which began production in October 2006.
MRC

Moscow (MRC) - European ethylene price for April delivery was reduced. However, many European producers have kept high density polyethylene (HDPE) prices for April delivery at the March level for CIS countries, according to ICIS-MRC Price Report.

European ethylene contract price for April delivery was reduced by EUR15/tonne, compared with the level in March.
Despite the price reduction of the main feedstock (ethylene) European producers plan to keep March HDPE prices for April delivery for CIS markets.

The deals for European HDPE for April delivery for CIS markets last week were discussed in the range of EUR1,120-1,180/tonne FCA. The low end for PE100 price was at EUR1,250/tonne FCA.

Many market participants reported limited export quotas of European HDPE because of the reduced capacity utilisation. The biggest reduction in European PE quotas for the second consecutive month occurred for pipe PE.
MRC