With new line Russian pipe extruder extends its large-diameter capability

(Plastics Today) -- The supplier of the equipment, battenfeld-cincinnati, says the purchase by Russian pipe processor ZAO Tehstroi will be the first installation in the country of an extrusion line for large high-pressure plastic pipe.

With its order for a complete extrusion line to extrude high-pressure pipes sized up to 1600 mm in diameter, ZAO Tehstroi (Kazan) will virtually double its own production capacity and also extend the overall range of pipes produced for the Russian market in Russia.

At the beginning of 2011, the machine manufacturer, battenfeld-cincinnati (Bad Oeynhausen, Germany and Vienna, Austria), will install this extrusion line, the first in Russia able to extrude HDPE high-pressure pipes with diameters ranging up to 1600 mm. For ZAO Tehstroi, this will be its fifth extrusion line, with the four in place also from battenfeld-cincinnati.

Tehstroi has been producing pipes at its own facility for only about three years, but it has quickly climbed to a position among the country's leaders in the market for gas and water pipe with an annual throughput of some 22,000 tonnes. This new line will increase the processor's production capacity to about 45,000 tonnes/yr and its market share in Russia to more than 20%.

MRC

Summarizing the ten months the volume of EPS imports supplies exceeded 81 KT which is 24% more compared to the supplies during the same period last year.

It is expected that along with the start-up of EPS production in Perm the dependence of the Russian market will be reduced on average by 4,5 KT a month. New production on the basis of SIBUR-Himprom facilities (Group of the companies SIBUR) was launched mid-November, but because of technical failures it was suspended.

For more detailed information on polystyrene market see DataScope.

MRC

(China Plastic&Rubber Journal) -- RadiciGroup, the Italian company with business in chemicals, plastics, synthetic fibers and textiles, has released its 2009 Sustainability Report, an annual overview of the group's activities and achievements in the field of corporate social responsibility.

RadiciGroup is an industrial enterprise with a fully vertically integrated polyamide production chain. And full vertical integration is the aspect the group intends to leverage in order to enhance the environmental sustainability of its entire production chain: from polymerization to downstream plastics compounding and synthetic fibers production.

MRC

(China Plastic&Rubber Journal) -- Eastman Chemical Company announced that it has received full registration for its Eastman 168 non-phthalate plasticizer in accordance with the Registration, Evaluation, Authorisation, and Restriction of Chemicals (REACH) Regulation.

This registration entitles Eastman to import, manufacture or use Eastman 168 in quantities exceeding 1,000 tons per year - the highest volume registration band under REACH.

A versatile plasticizer for PVC, Eastman 168 non-phthalate plasticizer was the first of many non-phthalate plasticizers Eastman has submitted for REACH registration. Having recently acquired Genovique Specialties Corporation and its family of benzoate plasticizer products, Eastman is completing REACH registration for its full portfolio of non-phthalate plasticizers.

MRC

(Plastemart) -- INEOS has embarked on restarting one of its Chocolate Bayou crackers in Texas, which were downed by lightning on 1 November. Outage at this plant triggered a significant rally in ethylene spot prices, as per ICIS. With two steam crackers in Chocolate Bayou, INEOS has a combined ethylene capacity of 1.8 mln tpa.

Olefins 1, with 907,000 tpa ethylene capacity is being restarted. The second cracker is unlikely to restart until mid-December.

The outage at Chocolate Bayou triggered a 27% surge in US ethylene spot prices, which had already been rising as a result of planned and unplanned shutdowns at four other units in prior weeks. Ethylene for November soared to US$1146/ton after the INEOS shutdown, rising from a deal done at 41 cents/lb only a couple of days before the outages.

Last week saw additional gains in ethylene on news of an extended outage at a Louisiana cracker. November ethylene traded as high as 53.50 cents/lb on 9 November, its highest level since the last week of April.

MRC