AkzoNobel strengthens Middle East presence with new powder coatings facility

MOSCOW (MRC) -- AkzoNobel has started operations at its new Powder Coatings plant in Dubai, said the producer in its press release.

The facility will significantly increase capacity for the company’s Interpon and Resicoat products.

The state-of-the art site is AkzoNobel’s sixth manufacturing plant in the Middle East and its 30th producing powder coatings around the world.

"This investment will further boost AkzoNobel’s position in the Middle East and strengthen our ability to serve the fast-growing regional powder coatings market," said Conrad Keijzer, AkzoNobel's Executive Committee member responsible for Performance Coatings.

The plant will target growing regional demand for decorative powder coatings - particularly from the architectural sector – as well as functional products used in the oil and gas and construction markets.

Commenting on the start of operations, Peter Tomlinson, Managing Director of AkzoNobel Middle East, said: "The new plant in Dubai underlines our commitment to the Middle East, where our aim is to continue to outgrow our competitors."

As MRC wrote preciously, AkzoNobel has announced that it will establish a new organization for its Performance Coatings Business Area in order to drive leading performance. The simplified new structure - due to become fully operational in January 2015 - will reduce the number of global management layers. As a result, Performance Coatings will be managed through seven Strategic Market Units under the leadership of Executive Committee Member Conrad Keijzer. The seven units will focus on specific customer segments and technologies. They will be: Marine Coatings, Metal Coatings, Powder Coatings, Protective Coatings, Specialty Coatings, Vehicle Refinishes and Wood Coatings.

Akzo Nobel N.V., trading as AkzoNobel, is a Dutch multinational, active in the fields of decorative paints, performance coatings and specialty chemicals. Headquartered in Amsterdam, the company has activities in more than 80 countries, and employs approximately 55,000 people.
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MOSCOW (MRC) -- Technip was awarded by Sasol a contract to provide engineering and procurement for eight proprietary Ultra Selective Conversion (USC) furnaces for a world-scale ethane cracker and derivatives complex to be located in Lake Charles, Louisiana, as per Hydrocarbonprocessing.

The award follows Sasol’s selection of Technip’s proprietary ethylene technology and FEED for the cracker, which will produce an estimated 1.5 MMtpa of ethylene.

This award validates Technip’s strategy of early involvement to design an effective project execution scheme, bringing value to clients. Technip’s operating center in Houston will execute the project.

"Following the selection of our ethylene technology during the early stage of this project, Technip is pleased to expand our role by supplying the most critical part of the cracker, the furnaces," said Stan Knez, Technip’s senior vice president of Technip Stone & Webster Process Technology.

"In addition, Technip’s North America region also is playing a significant project role, having been selected, with Fluor, to provide engineering, procurement and construction management for the cracker and derivatives complex".

As MRC reported ealier, in August 2014, KBR has been awarded a contract from INEOS and Sasol to provide engineering, procurement, and construction (EPC) services for a new high-density polyethylene (HDPE) facility to be located at INEOS's Battleground complex in La Porte, Texas.

Sasol Limited is an integrated energy and chemical company based in Johannesburg, South Africa. It develops and commercialises technologies, including synthetic fuels technologies, and produces different liquid fuels, chemicals and electricity.
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MOSCOW (MRC) -- Sonoco Products Co. has finalized the acquisition of Weidenhammer Packaging Group in a USD360 million deal, said Plasticsnews.

The purchase includes Weidenhammer Plastic Packaging with a plant in Zwenkau, Germany, near Leipzig, that includes production of cups, cans and containers with volumes of at least 100 milliliters. Buckets made there range from 1 to 11.4 liters.

Sonoco gains 13 locations, including five in Germany. There also are also sites in Kansas City, Mo., as well as Belgium, Chile, France, Greece, The Netherlands, Russia and United Kingdom, Sonoco has said.

Approximately 1,100 employees come to Hartsville, S.C.-based Sonoco in the deal.

Weidenhammer, a family owned business based in Hockenheim, expects sales of approximately USD327 million this year. That compares with Sonoco’s USD4.9 billion in annual sales. Weidenhammer markets the PermaSafe line of containers that the company touts as a plastic replacement for metal food cans and glass jars that is easier to handle, lighter and more cost effective.

As MRC wrote before, Sonoco commenced commercial production of rigid plastic containers for personal care products at its new USD15 million plant, located in the Beauty and Home Care campus in New Albany, Ohio.

Sonoco Plastics is a leading manufacturer of mono-layer and multi-layer blow-molded bottles and jars, thermoformed cups and trays and engineered molded and extruded containers, spools and trays. The Company has 25 plastics operations in the United States, Canada, Mexico, Ireland, Netherlands and Germany. In addition to the Beauty Park facility, Sonoco Plastics operates a state-of-the-art food-grade, blow-molding and injection molding plant in Columbus, Ohio. The Company is currently reviewing plans for additional expansion of this facility as well.
MRC

MOSCOW (MRC) -- Repsol has declared a force majeure (FM) on ethylene supplies from a cracker in Spain, reported Apic-online.

A Polymerupdate source in Spain informed that the FM was declared early last week owing to a shutdown of the cracker on account of technical issues. The impact of the FM on the spot market as well as the restart date for the plant could not be ascertained.

Located in Tarragona, Spain, the cracker has a production capacity of 702,000 mt/year.

As MRC informed earlier, in June 2014, Mexico's national oil company Pemex announced that it would sell a 7.9% stake in Spanish oil firm Repsol, worth about 2.2 billion euros (USD3.0 billion). The sale ends a long relationship between Pemex and Repsol that had run into trouble in recent years over disagreements on policies ranging from top management to the handling of Repsol's investments in Argentina.

Through this sale, Pemex will divest nearly all of its holding in Repsol, where its 9% stake has made it one of the top three shareholders.

Repsol S.A is an integrated Spanish oil and gas company with operations in 28 countries. The bulk of its assets are located in Spain.
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MOSCOW (MRC) -- German specialty chemicals company Evonik has opened its new methionine production complex in Jurong Island, its largest single investment to date at EUR500 million (SD806 million), said Todayonline.

With an annual capacity of 150,000 metric tons, the facility is Evonik’s fifth production plant for methionine - an essential amino acid for animal feed. This brings the company’s global annual capacity to 580,000 metric tons.

"Methionine is one of our core businesses and Asia is the fastest-growing methionine market in the world. This is why we decided to build here," executive board chairman of Evonik Industries Mr Klaus Engel.

Deputy Prime Minister and Minister for Finance Tharman Shanmugaratnam said the opening ceremony that Evonik’s decision to base its new plant here is testament to Singapore’s focus on growing the specialty chemicals sector.

In the last two years, Singapore has attracted more than SD2 billion dollars of fixed asset investment in this area, creating more than 1,000 skilled jobs that are mostly filled by Singaporeans.

As MRC wrote before, Evonik Industries AG (EVK) is exploring an acquisition of Dutch competitor Royal DSM NV as Germany’s second-biggest chemicals maker seeks a large European target. Evonik is talking to advisers about a potential deal with DSM, which would create a company with about 22 billion euros (USD28 billion) in sales, as well as analyzing other takeover options.

Evonik, the creative industrial group from Germany, is one of the world leaders in specialty chemicals. Evonik is active in over 100 countries around the world. In fiscal 2013 more than 33,500 employees generated sales of around EUR12.7 billion and an operating profit (adjusted EBITDA) of about EUR2.0 billion.
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