Japan Polypropylene building PP plant in Chiba

MOSCOW (MRC) -- Japan Polypropylene, a subsidiary of Mitsubishi Chemical Holdings, plans to build a new polypropylene (PP) plant in Ichihara, Chiba Prefecture, in fiscal 2019, according to the Nikkei Asian Review.

The company has been working to reduce capacity by 30% from 2009 levels to 870,000 tons a year by 2017.

The approximately 150,000-t/y PP unit will replace two older plants, which will discontinue operations to keep overall capacity at the same level. Some equipment from the older units will be used in the new plant, "helping keep investment costs to several billion yen," the report said.

Not including labor expenses, production costs are expected to be 15% lower than at its existing plants.

Japan Polypropylene Corporation engages in the research, development, manufacture, and sale of polypropylene resin in Japan. Its products include WINTEC resins, the metallocene catalyzed random copolymers for various applications; and WELNEX, a metallocene-based flexible reactor made thermoplastic elastomer. The company was founded in 2003 and is based in Minato-ku, Japan. Japan Polypropylene Corporation operates as a subsidiary of Japan Polychem Corporation, which is, in its turn, is a wholly owned subsidiary of Mitsubishi Chemical Corporation.
MRC

MOSCOW (MRC) -- KP Engineering, an industry leader in engineering, procurement and construction (EPC) solutions, has been awarded a fixed-price EPC contract by Praxair, Inc. to expand carbon monoxide production at its Geismar, Louisiana plant, said Praxair.

The award from Praxair is among several major projects KPE has secured within the last 12 months, including the recently awarded fixed-price contract from Targa Terminals LLC, valued in excess of USD100 million.

"We appreciate Praxair’s confidence in our ability to deliver world-class results for this important expansion in Geismar," said William Preston, President and Chief Operating Officer of KP Engineering. "KPE's expertise integrates well with Praxair’s vision and forms an important part of our business, complementing our positions in the refining, midstream, and petrochemical sectors."

The overall scope of the KPE project includes engineering, procurement, and construction. The project is expected to be completed in 2018.

Praxair previously said that it plans to invest USD100m to expand its Geismar syngas processing unit in response to growing demand.

Praxair, Inc., a Fortune 250 company with 2015 sales of USD11 billion, is the largest industrial gases company in North and South America and one of the largest worldwide. The company produces, sells and distributes atmospheric, process and specialty gases, and high-performance surface coatings. Praxair products, services and technologies are making our planet more productive by bringing efficiency and environmental benefits to a wide variety of industries, including aerospace, chemicals, food and beverage, electronics, energy, healthcare, manufacturing, primary metals and many others.
MRC

MOSCOW (MRC) -- Rockwell Automation, Inc. has acquired leading systems integrator Maverick Technologies to expand domain knowledge and help deliver innovative control and information solutions to customers in industries such as oil and gas, chemical and food and beverage, said Hydrocarbonprocessing.

The acquisition significantly strengthens Rockwell Automation’s expertise in key process and batch applications to help its customers realize greater productivity and improved global competitiveness through process control and information management solutions.

"Industrial control and information solutions are most effective when they result from close collaboration between a knowledgeable supplier and the user," said Ken Champa, Rockwell Automation senior vice president of Control Products and Solutions. "The combination of our global industrial automation leadership with Maverick’s platform-independent domain expertise will help our customers reduce complexity and realize unprecedented productivity."

The acquisition supports the Rockwell Automation growth strategy to help customers increase global competitiveness by adopting The Connected Enterprise – a vision that connects information across the plant floor with the entire enterprise to drive new business value. This is particularly important to process customers whose uptime and continuous performance are critical.

Rockwell Automation, Inc., the world’s largest company dedicated to industrial automation and information, makes its customers more productive and the world more sustainable. Headquartered in Milwaukee, Wis., Rockwell Automation employs approximately 22,000 people serving customers in more than 80 countries.

Founded in 1999, MAVERICK is the largest independent systems integrator in North America, and is a global leader in industrial automation, enterprise integration and strategic manufacturing solutions for clients across a wide range of manufacturing and process industries. Leveraging its unique enterprise-wide perspective, MAVERICK identifies suboptimal operations and improves performance for greater safety, efficiency and overall profitability.
MRC

MOSCOW (MRC) -- A joint venture "Uz-Kor Gas Chemical", founded by the National Holding Company Uzbekneftegaz and by an investment consortium of Korean companies - Kogas, Lotte Group and ST-X Energy, has begun the process of resuming production at its polyethylene (PE) and polypropylene (PP) capacities, as per ICIS-MRC's Price report with reference to the plant's customers.

According to the plant's clients, Uz-Kor Gas Chemical started a gradual resumption of production at its high denisty polyethylene (HDPE) and PP units since 10 October after the shutdown for scheduled turnarounds. The outage did not last long and began on 27 September.

The plant's customers also added that negotiations over prices for October PE and PP shipments had begun.

As MRC reported earlier, Uz-Kor Gas Chemical was founded on the basis of Ustyurt Gas Chemical Complex (Surgil field). The total cost of the project is over USD4 billion. The complex provides processing of 4.5 billion cubic meters of natural gas and includes HDPE and PP production capacities with the annual capacity of 386,000 and 80,000 tonnes, respectively.
MRC

MOSCOW (MRC) - Production of unmixed polyvinyl chloride (PVC) in Russia exceeded 565,000 tonnes in the first nine months of this year, down 2% compared to the same period of 2015. A significant increase in production volumes showed RusVinyl, according to MRC ScanPlast report.

Russia's production of unmixed PVC decreased to 65,700 tonnes in September, compared with 78,200 tonnes in August. The main decrease in production accounted for RusVinyl, which shut its capacities for scheduled turnaround. In general, January - September PVC production in Russia exceeded 565,000 tonnes against 578,800 tonnes year on year. RusVinyl increased production by one third , while SayanskKhimPlast decreased PVC production by 47% because of force majeure at ethylene production of Angarsk ZP (the only supplier of ethylene).

Structure of PVC production over the reported period looked as follows.

RusVinyl (joint venture of SIBUR and SolVin) in September produced about 15,300 tonnes of PVC, with 1,200 tonnes of them accounted for emulsion polyvinyl chloride (EPVC), compared with 29,200 tonnes in August. Reduction of production volumes was a result of scheduled maintenance works in the second half of the month. Total production of resin at RusVinyl in the first nine months of this year was about 224,700 tonnes, compared with 169,200 tonnes year on year.

Bashkir Soda Company (BSC) in September 2016 produced about 20,900 tonnes of suspension polyvinyl chloride (SPVC), while in August it was a little more than 21,100 tonnes. Producer's production of PVC exceeded 190,700 tonnes in January - September of this year, up 8% year on year.

Kaustik (Volgograd) in September also showed a slight decrease in production, last month's PVC production was about 7,500 tonnes, compared with 7,800 tonnes in August. Total SPVC production at the plant reached 64,800 tonnes in January-September 2016, down 9% year on year.
Reduction in production figures was a result of preventive repair in May - June, whereas in previous years the shutdown was held in October.

SayanskKhimPlast significantly increased capacity utilisation in September, having produced more than 22,000 tonnes of SPVC, while in August production of SPVC was about 20,000 tonnes. The producer's production of PVC was only 84,800 tonnes in Jan-September 2016, compared with 161,5000 tonnes year on year.

MRC