PET packaging equipment supplier moves to new UK offices

MOSCOW (MRC) -- In a move aimed at better servicing its customers in the UK and Ireland, liquid packaging and equipment supplier Sidel (Hunenberg / Switzerland) has relocated its UK office from Hatfield to Welwyn Garden City, Hertfordshire, as per Plaseurope.

The 400 m2 premises now house the company’s Europe & Central Asia team.

The new location offers improved access to customers across the UK, Sidel said, adding that the use of PET by the packaging market in the UK and Ireland has grown by 1.9% in volume terms over the period of 2008-2013. The office will showcase all the latest packaging innovations, equipment and services, Sidel said.

The Swiss company has more than 50 offices worldwide, as well as 13 production sites and seven training centres. Its total workforce comes to more than 3,400.

As MRC wrote before, Sidel Group has opened a new training center in Guadalajara, Mexico, featuring a virtual factory environment, augmented reality and authentic parts that trainees can handle themselves. The new facility, which brings Sidel’s training centers to seven, has been developed to meet local customer needs.

Sidel is a manufacturing company providing packaging for liquids such as water; carbonated and non-carbonated soft drinks; and sensitive beverages like milk, liquid dairy products, juices, nectars, tea, coffee and isotonics; as well as edible oil, beer and other alcoholic beverages. Sidel manufacturers and services equipment that enables other companies to package such liquids using one of three main materials: plastic (especially PET, and also HDPE and PP).
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Russian oil giant battles debt after USD55 bn deal

MOSCOW (MRC) -- Battered by sanctions and oil’s accelerating price crash, OAO Rosneft has lost 38% of its market value this year in dollar terms and today the whole company, TNK-BP and all, is worth USD50 billion, said Bloomberg.

And buying TNK-BP has left Sechin, Rosneft’s chief executive officer and a long-time ally of Russian President Vladimir Putin, with a lot of debt to repay. State-controlled Rosneft owes about $60 billion to banks and bondholders, making it more indebted relative to earnings than any large oil producer apart from Brazil’s Petroleo Brasileiro SA.

"Their aggressive expansion and debt accumulation made them more vulnerable to the falling oil price and the effect of sanctions," Oleg Popov, who helps oversee USD1 billion at Allianz Investments in Moscow, said by phone.

Sechin, who had pledged the combined company would be worth USD120 billion, has bigger ambitions than simply creating Russia’s largest oil producer. Putin’s point man for energy has sought to build a global oil major, swapping drilling rights at home for exploration blocks from Norway to the Gulf of Mexico. He bought production projects in Venezuela and half an oil refinery in Germany.

Rosneft, which achieved a market value of about USD96 billion in the weeks after the TNK-BP deal was announced, has underperformed both Russian and international competitors this year.

"If you have to sell some oil stock you will sell the most leveraged one, and that is Rosneft in Russia," Renata Klita, an analyst at Blackfriars Asset Management Ltd. in London, said by e-mail. Rosneft’s borrowing creates a higher sensitivity to crude prices, she said.

Sanctions imposed to punish Russia’s annexation of Crimea and policy toward Ukraine will limit Rosneft’s access to refinancing for existing loans. The Moscow-based company has already applied for state funds to help repay $30 billion that’s due by the end of next year.
MRC

JBF Petrochemical to start up new PTA in India

MOSCOW (MRC) -- JBF Petrochemical is in plans to start a new purified terephthalic acid (PTA) plant in India, according to Apic-online.

A Polymerupdate source in India informed that the plant is likely to be started in Q4, 2015.

To be located in Mangalore in the south Indian state of Karnataka, the plant will have a production capacity of 1.25 million mt/year.

As MRC reported earlier, China’s polyester maker Tongkun is in plans to start a new PTA plant in 2017. To be located at Zhapu in Zhejiang province, China, the plant will have a production capacity of 1.5 million mt/year.

Besides, BP Zhuhai Chemical has deferred the startup of its new PTA in China. The startup of the plant has been postponed to 2015. It was earlier scheduled to start in Q4, 2014. The reason for the delayed startup has been attributed to weak margins for PTA.
MRC

UK plastic packaging maker RPC to buy Promens

MOSCOW (MRC) - British plastic packaging supplier RPC Group Plc (RPC.L) said it would buy Iceland-based plastic products maker Promens Group AS for EUR386 mln (GBP306.7 mln) to strengthen its position in Europe and help satisfy its increasing need for polymer, as per Reuters.

RPC shares rose as much as 4.8 percent, making them one of the top percentage gainers on the FTSE-250 Midcap Index .

The company said it would raise about 200 million pounds (USD316 million) through a fully underwritten 1-for-3 rights issue at 320 pence each to partly fund the deal.

RPC, whose business includes making packaging for Nivea creams and Nescafe coffee capsules, said the balance would be funded by increasing its revolving credit facility to GBP490 million from 350 million.

Privately owned Promens, which has grown through acquisitions, has 40 plants, including 35 in eastern Europe. RPC has 50, mostly in Europe but also in the United Kingdom, the United States and China.

RPC said the Icelandic company's operations in China and India would help it reinforce its presence beyond Europe.

"The growth is very much outside of Europe ... and as disposable incomes rise in India, China and also Latin America, our customers have needs," RPC Chief Executive Pim Vervaat.

RPC is one of the world's leading suppliers of rigid plastics packaging. RPC develops and manufactures a diverse range of high quality packs for a wide variety of customers, including many household names, across a large number of market sectors.

Promens is an international rigid plastic manufacturer of packaging and components for the food and non-food, consumer and commercial vehicles markets with a global reach offering similar plastic conversion technologies to RPC but, in addition, rotational moulding and reaction injection moulding.
MRC

Capacity utilisation at PET plants in Russia doubled in October

MOSCOW (MRC) -- Russian producers increased their capacity utilisation to 76% in October, up by 38% from September, according to MRC ScanPlast.

The growth of the overall capacity utilisation in the sector was achieved by resuption of production at Senezh and Polief after the September maintenance in September and the increased production at the Kaliningrad plant Alco-Naphtha.

As reported previously, the September capacity utilisation at all polyethylene terephthalate (PET) plants in Russia was reduced to 38% because of the maintenance works at Russian plants.


Russia produced 38,600 tonnes of PET in October versus 19,300 tons in September. At the same time, the country's overall production in totalled 355,000 tonnes from January to October 2014, which is almost equal to the figure over the same period a year earlier. Production volumes remained stable, despite the overall increase in PET chips production capacity in the country due to the launch of the second line at Polief.

For more detailed statistics on production by plants, as well as on the overall balance of the PET market Russia can be found in MRC ScanPlast report.

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