Celanese to acquire Nilit Plastics for product portfolio expansion

MOSCOW (MRC) -- Celanese Corporation and Nilit have signed a definitive agreement for Celanese to acquire Nilit Plastics, the nylon compounding division of Nilit, as per Plastemart.

Celanese will acquire Nilit Plastics’ nylon compounding product portfolio as well as customer agreements and manufacturing, technology and commercial facilities. Nilit will retain ownership of the nylon fibers and nylon polymerization businesses worldwide, including facilities in Israel, the United States, China, and Brazil. Financial details of the transaction are not being disclosed at this time.

"Nylon compounds continue to be a material of choice in automotive, E&E, consumer and industrial applications, and this acquisition delivers on Celanese’s intention to complement its broad portfolio by becoming a leading, global nylon compound supplier," said Scott Sutton, Celanese executive vice president and president of Materials Solutions. "Celanese will extend its global leadership position in the engineered materials business with the acquisition of Nilit Plastics as nylon continues to be adopted in growth industries where Celanese is already focusing significant product, solution and customer-focused development activities."

"The nylon product portfolio of Nilit Plastics is one of the broadest in the market for polyamide compounds. This breadth is matched by the company’s expertise in compounds based on polyamides and an in-depth knowledge of target markets and applications," said Ilan Melamed, managing director of Nilit Plastics. "Nilit Plastics is regarded by the market and its customers as a solution provider with its ability to develop and produce compounds exactly fit for the application. We are pleased to join Nilit Plastics with the Celanese family and bring our world-class products, technology and valued employee base to a global engineered materials leader where both our products and people will continue to grow."

As MRC wrote before, Celanese Corporation increased the price of emulsions sold in the Americas. Vinyl acetate homopolymer emulsions, vinyl acrylic emulsions, vinyl acetate ethylene emulsions, and acrylic emulsions rose by up to USD0.03/wet pound effective March 1, 2017, or as contracts allow. This price increase affects all applications including, but not limited to, adhesives, paints and coatings, building and construction, nonwovens, glass fiber, carpet, paper and textiles. This announcement is in addition to the price increase for vinyl acetate based emulsions which was announced on October 14, 2016, and effective November 15, 2016.

Celanese Corporation is a global technology leader in the production of differentiated chemistry solutions and specialty materials used in most major industries and consumer applications. Based in Dallas, Celanese employs approximately 7,000 employees worldwide and had 2015 net sales of USD5.7 billion.
MRC

Moscow (MRC) c --Ukraina has introduced a temporary ban on imports of all products from RusVinyl Kaustik (Volgograd), effective from April, according to the Ministry of Economic Development and Trade.

As per information published on the website of the Ministry of Economic Development and Trade, the ban will affect all foreign trade activities with several Russian producers of polyvinyl chloride (PVC). In particular, the decision extends Nizhny Novgorod RusVinyl and Kaustik (Volgograd). Two other producer - Bashkir Soda Company and SayanskKhimPlast were not mentioned in the document.

The decision was taken on 23 February, and comes into force on 4 April. Terms of the ban has not yet announced.

MRC

MOSCOW (MRC) -- China's Sinopec group, parent of Sinopec Corp, will invest USD29.05 billion to upgrade four refining bases between 2016 and 2020 to produce higher-quality fuels, said Reuters.

Sinopec's upgrades come as China, the world's second-biggest oil consumer, is embracing more stringent fuel standards in its battle against pollution and suffering an overall glut in refining capacity.

After the upgrades, the total refining capacity of the four refining sites will reach 130 MMtpy, or 2.6 MMbpd, while ethylene capacity will reach 9 MMtpy, Sinopec said.

The sites are in the cities of Shanghai, Nanjing and Zhenhai on the east coast and Maoming-Zhanjiang in southern Guangdong province. After the expansions, the bases will make up 45% of Sinopec's total refining capacity and 65% of its ethylene capacity.

"It's a strategic move that fits the global industrial trend for clustered and scaled growth and helps transform China's petrochemical products to medium and high quality," the company chairman Wang Yupu was cited as saying in the statement.

Between the four bases, Sinopec will be able to optimize the product structure and reduce logistics cost. Sinopec, Asia's largest refiner, started construction in December of a greenfield oil refinery and petrochemical complex in Zhanjiang that includes a 200,000 bpd refinery and an 800,000 tpy ethylene complex.

The refinery will mainly produce gasoline and diesel that meets the "national six" specificiations, up from the previous Euro V guidelines that cap sulfur content at 10 parts per million (ppm), said Sinopec in the statement.

The new plant will be geared toward producing gasoline and aviation fuel at the expense of diesel, the firm said. After the upgrades, Sinopec estimates the four sites will generate revenue of 800 billion yuan by 2020, based on USD54 a barrel crude oil prices.
MRC

MOSCOW (MRC) -- With immediate effect, or as existing contracts permit, BASF SE will increase its European selling prices for a number of petrochemical products, said the producer on its site.

Thus, March prices of the following products will be raised, as stated below:

- 1,4-Butanediol (BDO) - by EUR200/mt;
- tetrahydrofuran (THF) - by EUR150/mt;
- polytetramethylene ether glycol (PolyTHF) - by EUR260/mt;
- N-methyl-2-pyrrolidone (NMP) - by EUR150/mt;
- gamma butyrolactone (GBL) - by EUR150/mt;
- N-ethylpyrrolidone (NEP) - EUR150/mt.

BDO and its derivatives are used for producing engineering plastics, polyurethanes, solvents and elastic spandex fibers. PolyTHF is a registered trade mark of BASF Group in many countries.

As MRC informed before, in June 2016, BASF increased the prices of the following polyalcohols in Europe: neopentylglycol, trimethylolpropane and 1,6-Hexanediol, as follows:

- Neopentylglycol (NPG) - by EUR80/mt;
- Trimethylolpropane (TMP) - by EUR80/mt;
- 1,6-Hexanediol (HDO) - by EUR100/mt.

Neopentylglycol (NPG) is a high-quality intermediate used, for example, to produce polyester resins for coatings, unsaturated polyester resins, lubricants and plasticizers.

Trimethylolpropane (TMP) is a high-quality intermediate that is used primarily for the production of alkyd resins, which are used in paints and coatings. It also serves to produce lubricants.

1,6-Hexanediol (HDO) is used to manufacture industrial coatings including lower volatile organic compound formulations, polyurethanes, adhesives, and cosmetics. HDO also serves as a reactive thinner in the formulation of epoxy systems, which are used for the efficient production of rotor blades for modern wind turbines, as well as construction components for automotive lightweight applications.

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 generated sales of more than EUR70 billion in 2015.
MRC

MOSCOW (MRC) -- An agreement with Evonik Industries inked last fall complements Athlon Solutions’ water and process treating capabilities with a globally-proven product line and technical support network, said Hydrocarbonprocessing.

“Evonik better positions us to serve our customers with a proven product line to address their petrochemical challenges," said Matt Forcey, Marketing V.P. at Athlon Solutions. "With Evonik’s global presence, it also gives us access to technical experts that have likely seen the challenges that our customers in the domestic US market are facing."

“The combination of Athlon’s excellence in serving customer needs and Evonik’s SiYPro performance additive solutions will create a unique force in the North American petrochemical industry," said Frank Kraushaar, V.P. of Evonik’s Polymer Additives market segment.

Under the agreement, Athlon Solutions is the distributor of Evonik’s products and provides customers in the US, Canada and Mexico with day-to-day account management, service (including engineering and technical support), and reporting. Evonik provide its specialty chemicals and backs up Athlon Solutions with technical support.
MRC