Teijin to shut PC plant in Singapore by H2-2015 as part of restructuring

MOSCOW (MRC) -- Japan's Teijin plans to shutdown its polycarbonate (PC) resin plant in Singapore by year end and put the industrial facility on Jurong Island up for sale through an expression of interest, as per The Business Times.

The plan to shutter is part of the company's restructuring exercise of its loss-making businesses. Hurt particularly by high energy costs, the Singapore plant, which began operations in October 1999, has also been beaten by low-cost China rivals, the company said last November.

It has four production lines. One production line was shut down last October and another in May. The remaining two will be shut by year end. Teijin will scale back on its production of commoditised products under its restructuring exercise, and move its production of PC resin to its subsidiary in China and to its plant in Matsuyama in Japan, which it considers especially suited to the development of high-performance products, the company said.

As MRC reported earlier, in November 2014, Teijin Ltd. disclosed "dramatic restructuring" initiatives that reflect changes in the business environment and are intended to move the company toward a solutions-oriented business model. Among the planned actions, Teijin said it would withdraw by the end of December 2015 from its Teijin Polycarbonate Singapore subsidiary which lacks competitiveness in terms of energy costs. The Singapore plant has 225,000 t/y of polycarbonate (PC) capacity.

Teijin is a technology-driven global group offering advanced solutions in the areas of sustainable transportation, information and electronics, safety and protection, environment and energy, and healthcare. Its main fields of operation are high-performance fibers such as aramid, carbon fibers & composites, healthcare, films, resin & plastic processing, polyester fibers, products converting and IT. The group has some 150 companies and around 17,000 employees spread out over 20 countries worldwide.
MRC

MOSCOW (MRC) -- TPI Polene has shut an ethylene vinyl acetate (EVA)/low density polyethylene (LDPE) swing plant owing to high ethylene feedstock costs, reported Apic-online.

A Polymerupdate source in Thailand informed that the plant was shut over the weekend. The duration of the shutdown could not be ascertained.

Located in Map Ta Phut, Rayong province in Thailand, the plant has a production capacity of 150,000 mt/year.

As MRC informed before, BASF-YPC, a JV of BASF, the world's leading chemical company, shut its low density polyethylene/ethylene vinyl acetate (LDPE/EVA) plant for maintenance turnaround on April 1, 2015. The duration of the turnaround could not be ascertained. Located at Nanjing in Jiangsu province of China, it has a production capacity of 200,000 mt/year.

Besides, Jiangsu Sailboat Petrochemical is in plans to start a new ethylene vinyl acetate (EVA)/low density polyethylene (LDPE) swing plant in April 2016. Located at Lianyugang in Jiangsu province of China, the plant has a production capacity of 300,000 mt/year.
MRC

MOSCOW (MRC) -- BASF meets the requirements of its customers by offering them a broad portfolio of high-performance pigments, to which the company has now added a particularly color-intensive Indanthrone blue pigment - the Paliogen Blue EH 1900 (L 6400), said the producer on its site.

With this new pigment, BASF enables its customers to produce highly chromatic reddish-blue color shades. The product can also be combined with various effect pigments. "Paliogen Blue EH 1900 provides a lot of benefits for the user: Showing an excellent performance in water- and solvent-based systems, it is universally applicable. The product not only stands out due to its good fastness to weathering, but also due to a reduced tendency 'to bleed': The pigment particles do not migrate into other coating layers, which results in better overcoating fastness," explained Tom Landuydt, head of Pigment Marketing for Automotive Coatings at BASF. "Moreover the pigment shows great styling possibilities with Lumina® Royal Blue 6803 H and with Lumina Royal Aqua 7803 H."

Using pigments with a broad color range that enable to develop novel designs – this is what coatings producers favor. With its new effect pigment Lumina Royal Magenta EH 5000 (4803 H) BASF offers formulators of automotive coatings novel design options all the way from the reddish-blue color spectrum into the red color area.

Due to the narrow particle-size distribution, the pigment helps to create highly chromatic new color shades as well as surfaces that appear extremely pure and vibrant at whatever angle you look at them. "With Lumina Royal Magenta, we have extended the color range of the Lumina Royal product series. These highly intense pearlescent pigments help our customers to be more flexible when it comes to formulating automotive coatings as we can now offer effects from the greenish blue into the copper orange color space," underlined Tom Landuydt.

Lumina Royal Magenta is the fifth member of the Lumina Royal product family of BASF. Prior to this, BASF has already launched the four color shades Aqua, Blue, Indigo and Copper.

For years now, the particularly color-intensive Irgazin Cosmoray Orange L 2950 pigment has been well established in the European marketplace. Due to successful registrations in the other continents the product can now be utilized in the most important markets worldwide. The pigment enables coatings producers to create attractive design options in the orange to red color space. The high-performance diketo-pyrrolo-pyrrole (DPP) pigment appeals to customers due to its good weather resistance, light fastness, color intensity and saturation properties.

Because of its good transparency Irgazin Cosmoray Orange L 2950 is ideal to combine with effect pigments and other colored pigments. It can be used for water-based as well as solvent-based systems and has no effect on the coating’s rheology and migration resistance.

As MRC reported earlier, BASF will expand its capacity for the production of Paliocrom effect pigments by more than 20 percent by 2017 in Ludwigshafen, Germany. The investment will enable the company to accommodate for the growing demand of its aluminum-based effect pigments in the automotive coatings sector. With an investment of approximately EUR10 million, BASF aims to strengthen its position in this fast-growing market.

BASF is the largest diversified chemical company in the world and is headquartered in Ludwigshafen, Germany. BASF produces a wide range of chemicals, for example solvents, amines, resins, glues, electronic-grade chemicals, industrial gases, basic petrochemicals and inorganic chemicals. The most important customers for this segment are the pharmaceutical, construction, textile and automotive industries. BASF had sales of over EUR74 billion in 2014 and over 113,000 employees as of the end of the year.
MRC

MOSCOW (MRC) -- The Dow Chemical Company and Olin Corporation has announced the achievement of a regulatory milestone in the proposed transaction involving a significant portion of Dow’s chlorine value chain and Olin Corporation, with the expiration of the required waiting period under the Hart-Scott-Rodino (HSR) Antitrust Improvements Act of 1976, reported Dow on its site.

"This important milestone marks progress toward the close of a seminal transaction maximizing return for both Dow and Olin shareholders and the advancement of Dow’s targeted market participation and portfolio transformation strategies," said Andrew N. Liveris, Dow’s chairman and chief executive officer.

As previously announced, on March 27, 2015, Dow and Olin entered into a definitive agreement under which Dow will separate its U.S. Gulf Coast Chlor-Alkali and Vinyl, Global Chlorinated Organics and Global Epoxy businesses, and then merge these businesses with Olin in a Reverse Morris Trust transaction. The merger will result in Dow shareholders receiving at least a majority of the shares of Olin, with existing Olin shareholders owning the remaining shares.

"We are one step closer to combining the world-class assets and people of Dow and Olin taking our business to an entirely new level in terms of scale, integration, cost-advantaged feedstocks, and a broad and diverse end-uses portfolio, ultimately creating value for our customers," said Joseph D. Rupp, Olin’s chairman and chief executive officer.

The transaction is expected to close by the end of the year and is subject to approval by Olin shareholders and completion of customary closing conditions.

As MRC informed earlier, in February 201, The Dow Chemical Company completed sale of ANGUS Chemical Company to Golden Gate Capital. The company finalized the divestiture of its Sodium Borohydride business to Vertellus Performance Chemicals LLC and certain of its affiliates.

The Dow Chemical Company is an American multinational chemical corporation headquartered in Midland, Michigan, United States. Dow is a large producer of plastics, including polystyrene (PS), polyurethane, polyethylene (PE), polypropylene (PP), and synthetic rubber. In 2014, Dow had annual sales of more than USD58 billion and employed approximately 53,000 people worldwide. The company's more than 6,000 product families are manufactured at 201 sites in 35 countries across the globe.

Olin Corporation is a manufacturer concentrated in three business segments: Chlor Alkali Products, Chemical Distribution and Winchester. Chlor Alkali Products, with eight U.S. manufacturing facilities and one Canadian manufacturing facility, produces chlorine and caustic soda, hydrochloric acid, hydrogen, bleach products and potassium hydroxide. Chemical Distribution manufactures bleach products and distributes caustic soda, bleach products, potassium hydroxide and hydrochloric acid.
MRC

MOSCOW (MRC) -- SCG-Dow Chemical is likely to take off-stream its styrene monomer (SM) plant for maintenance turnaround, according to Apic-online.

A Polymerupdate source in Thailand informed that the plant is planned to be taken off-stream in Q1, 2016. It is likely to remain off-stream for around one month.

Located in Thailand, the plant has a production capacity of 175,000 mt/year.

As MRC wrote before, in June 2015. Dow Chemical resumed ethylene production at its Plaquemine, Louisiana site. Outage at the light hydrocarbon unit No. 3, which has annual production of 725,000 mt, started in late May, and resulted in further tightening of the Louisiana ethylene market. "On June 11, our ethylene plant in Plaquemine, LA (LA-3) safely resumed operations," the source said.

The Dow Chemical Company is an American multinational chemical corporation headquartered in Midland, Michigan, United States. Dow is a large producer of plastics, including polystyrene (PS), polyurethane, polyethylene (PE), polypropylene (PP), and synthetic rubber.
MRC