Idemitsu Kosan to shut down SM plant in Japan for maintenance

MOSCOW (MRC) -- Idemitsu Kosan plans to undertake maintenance turnaround at the SM plant in April 2015, according to Apic-online.

A Polymerupdate source in Japan informed that the SM plant will undergo maintenance turnaround in April next year. The maintenance is likely to last for around three months. The plant is most likely to resume production in early July.

Located at Chiba in Japan, the SM plant has a production capacity of 210,000 mt/yr.

As MRC wrote previously, Idemitsu SM (Malaysia) shut down its SM plant for maintenance in August 2014. It is likely to remain shut for around one month. Located at Pasir Gudang in Malaysia, the SM plant has a production capacity of 600,000 mt/year.

Besides, Idemitsu Kosan shut down its naphtha cracker in Japan for maintenance turnaround on September 9, 2014 and planned to restart it in November 2014. Located at Tokuyama in Japan, the cracker has an ethylene capacity of 623,000 mt/year and propylene capacity of 450,000 mt/year.

Idemitsu Kosan is a Japanese petroleum company. It owns and operates oil platforms, refineries and produces and sells petroleum, oils and petrochemical products. The company runs two petrochemical plants in Chiba and Tokuyama. The two naphtha crackers can produce up to 997,000 tonnes of ethylene per year.
MRC

MOSCOW (MRC) -- Reliance Industries has announced the following price revisions for December PE delivery, as per the company's press-release.

Decrease in HDPE & LDPE prices by Rs 2000/MT
Decrease in LLDPE prices by Rs 2000/MT except Rotomoulding and Octene grades where there is no change in prices.
Decrease in prices of EVA by Rs 3000/MT.
Change in DE Prices as per circular attached.

Earlier price protection is withdrawn & new price protection is announced wef 11 Dec 2014 The price protection is applicable on HDPE & LLDPE but not on LDPE, EVA and Deemed exports.

As MRC informed previously, Reliance Industries (RIL) will invest up to USD700 mln in its shale gas venture in the current fiscal and also ramp up spends under the USD13 bln capex programme in the petrochemical and refining business.

Reliance Industries is one of the world's largest producers of polymers. The company's polymer production in 2010-11 (polypropylene, polyethylene and polyvinyl chloride) made 4,094 kilo tonnes.
MRC

MOSCOW (MRC) -- UOP LLC, a Honeywell company, announced that UOP C3 Oleflex process technology started up and has been successfully operating in Russia, producing high-quality propylene to help meet the global supply shortage of the valuable plastics building block, said the company in its press-release.

Russia's OOO Tobolsk-Polymer facility, which became the largest Oleflex production unit in the world, is meeting design capacity of 510,000 metric tons annually (MTA) of propylene at its facility in Western Siberia.

Global propylene demand is growing at about 4 to 5% per year. Russia is expected to be a large contributor to propylene production due to the country's diversification into the petrochemicals sector, which has seen substantial investment in the polyethylene and polypropylene industries, according to GlobalData.

The C3 Oleflex process uses catalytic dehydrogenation to convert propane to propylene. Compared with competing processes, UOP's C3 Oleflex technology provides the lowest cash cost of production, the highest return on investment and the smallest environmental footprint. This superior performance is characterized by low capital cost, high propylene yields, low energy and water consumption, and use of a fully recyclable platinum alumina-based catalyst system. In addition to the C3 Oleflex process, UOP also licenses its C4 Oleflex technology, a butane dehydrogenation process to convert isobutane to isobutylene.

OOO Tobolsk-Polymer, a subsidiary of SIBUR Holding JSC, produces a wide range of high-quality polypropylene used to manufacture goods in Russia and abroad. The facility is located in Tobolsk in the Tymen region of Russia.

UOP LLC is a leading international supplier and licensor of process technology, catalysts, adsorbents, equipment, and consulting services to the petroleum refining, petrochemical, and gas processing industries. UOP is a wholly-owned subsidiary of Honeywell International, Inc. and is part of Honeywell's Performance Materials and Technologies strategic business group, which also includes Honeywell Process Solutions, a pioneer in automation control, instrumentation and services for the oil and gas, refining, petrochemical, chemical and other industries.

Honeywell is a Fortune 100 diversified technology and manufacturing leader, serving customers worldwide with aerospace products and services; control technologies for buildings, homes, and industry; turbochargers; and performance materials.

SIBUR is a vertically integrated gas processing and petrochemicals company, which operate Russia’s largest gas processing business in terms of associated petroleum gas processing volumes and are the leader in the Russian petrochemicals industry.

LLC "Tobolsk-Polymer" is a subsidiary of SIBUR and Russia's largest construction project of a modern PP complex with the production capacity of 500,000 tonnes per year. It is located in the industrial zone of Tobolsk, at the production site of Tobolsk-Neftekhim.
MRC

MOSCOW (MRC) -- French chemicals group Arkema has announced a successful completion of the EU350 million share capital increase related to the proposed acquisition of Bostik, reported the company in its press release.

Thus, the share capital increase with preferential subscription rights launched by Arkema on 19 November 2014 as part of the financing of the proposed acquisition of Bostik has been successfully completed.

The gross proceeds of the issue amounts to EUR350,451,024, corresponding to the issue of 9,102,624 new shares.

Therefore, the deal would be financed by a EUR350-million share capital increase; the issuance of hybrid securities of EUR600-700 million; and a senior bond issuance for the rest, EUR500–600 million, Arkema says.

As MRC wrote befire, in late September 2014, Arkema offered to buy oil major Total's adhesives business Bostik, which makes Blu-Tack, for EUR1.74 billion (USD2.24 billion).

Total, under pressure from shareholders to improve its cash flow and raise dividends, has embarked on a major divestment program. A sale of Bostik at that price would increase its announced disposals this year to near USD20 billion - at the top of its target range of USD15-USD20 billion.

Bostik is the third-largest adhesives company and generated sales of EUR1.53 billion in 2013. Total has granted Arkema an exclusivity period to pursue the offer. The proposed transaction is subject to approval by the relevant antitrust authorities.

The acquisition would strengthen Arkema’s position in specialty chemicals and continue the development of its high-performance materials segment, which would account for 42% of total sales following the Bostik deal, Arkema says.

Bostik develops high-performance and high-value-added bonding and sealing products for the nonwoven, industrial, construction, and consumer markets. Bostik employs about 4,900 people across 48 production facilities - 18 in Europe, 10 - in North America, 8 - in Asia, 6 - in Australia and New Zealand, 2 - in Africa, and 4 - in South America.

Arkema is a leading European supplier of chlorochemicals and PVC. Kynar and Kynar Flex are registered trademarks of Arkema Inc.
MRC

MOSCOW (MRC) -- Engineers increasingly are using Tepex performance composites from Lanxess subsidiary Bond-Laminates to significantly improve the mechanical strength of components made of fiber-reinforced thermoplastic compression molding compounds, as per Lanxess' press release.

The latest example is a cover on the rear muffler of the BMW i8. It is fabricated in a direct long fiber thermoplastic (DLFT) process from a polypropylene compression molding compound reinforced with long glass fiber rovings. An insert made of Tepex dynalite 104-RG601 is used as the surface layer.

Tepex also is an attractive option for locally reinforcing components made of other thermoplastic compression molding compounds and forming materials. For example, the mechanical properties of Tepex-reinforced DLFT polypropylene materials are on par with glass-mat-reinforced and glass-fabric-reinforced thermoplastic systems (GMT and GMTex) based on polypropylene.

As MRC informed previously, in October 2014, at Composites Europe, Lanxess presented new multi-axial Tepex semi-finished products from its subsidiary Bond-Laminates. Bond-Laminates can produce them continuously in an industrial-scale process that enables the continuous fiber layers to be oriented at almost any angle in the thermoplastic matrix. It is even possible to achieve quasi-isotropic lay-ups. The hybrid technology using Tepex with polyamide 6 as an overmolding material has already conquered a large number of series applications in the lightweight design of automobiles. Durethan BKV 55 TPX, a new polyamide 6 reinforced with 55 percent short glass fibers and optimized for overmolding Tepex.

Lanxess is a leading specialty chemicals company with sales of EUR 8.3 billion in 2013 and roughly 17,000 employees in 31 countries. The company is currently represented at 52 production sites worldwide. The core business of Lanxess is the development, manufacturing and marketing of plastics, rubber, intermediates and specialty chemicals.
MRC