Repsol winner at the Best Polymer Producer Awards for Europe

MOSCOW (MRC) -- On 1 June 2017, in Madrid (Spain), Repsol was bestowed the HDPE Best Polymer Producer Award for Europe 2017, said . The award ceremony took place during the Gala Dinner of European Plastics Converters (EuPC) and ANAIP (the Spanish association of plastic converters) Annual European Meeting, said Yourpetrochemicalnews.

The Awards are the result of an online customers’ survey launched by the Polymers for Europe Alliance, starting in February 2017. Users of polymers all over Europe rated their suppliers’ performances, from mid last year up to now, regarding five criteria: Polymer Quality, Regulatory Compliance, Delivery Reliability, Communication and Innovation.

If it was already an honour for Repsol to receive this award in 2016, it is even more so on this occasion as the customers of polymers from all over Europe express once again their trust in the company and their appreciation for the continued effort and good work carried out by the entire team involved.

Repsol wants to thank all the companies that participated in the voting for this acknowledgement and reaffirms its commitment to continue working on maintaining its clients trust.
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MOSCOW (MRC) -- China said it was to look at imposing anti-dumping duties (ADDs) on styrene monomer imports from South Korea, as per Apic-online.

The proposed ADD was a result of a recent petition filed by Chinese producers to decrease competition from South Korea, sources said.

Market participants said despite news they were skeptical that ADDs would be imposed any time soon.

South Korea is the largest exporter of styrene monomer to China, shipping 1.23 million mt of styrene in 2016, or 35% of China's SM imports.

For comparison, China's domestic SM production stands at about 8.39 million mt/year, according to industry sources.

As MRC wrote before, in March 2016, The US Department of Commerce (DOC) has imposed anti-dumping duties (ADD) on polyethylene terephthalate (PET) resins imported from Canada, China, India and Oman.
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MOSCOW (MRC) -- Chemical companies DuPont and the Dow Chemical Company have reached a proposed agreement with the US Department of Justice (DOJ) Antitrust Division that will enable the firms to advance the proposed merger of equals, said Chemicals-technology.

The companies received the approval on condition that DuPont will divest certain parts of its crop protection portfolio. Dow will therefore sell its global Ethylene Acrylic Acid copolymers and ionomers business.

Divestments in the proposed agreement are consistent with commitments already made to obtain the European Commission’s (EC) regulatory approval.

Dow's chairman and chief executive officer (CEO) Andrew Liveris said: "With today’s DOJ clearance, we have taken a significant step forward in bringing together these two iconic enterprises, and in the subsequent intended separation into three leading, independent innovation-based science companies that will generate significant benefits for all stakeholders."

"We are on track to close our procompetitive merger in a manner that maintains the strategic logic and value creation potential of the transaction."

The proposed agreement with the DOJ is subject to court approval. The companies are not required to make any additional divestitures and no additional approvals are required in the US to close the merger.

DuPont's chair and CEO Ed Breen said: "With this review completed, we are on track to close our procompetitive merger in a manner that maintains the strategic logic and value creation potential of the transaction."

The all-stock merger will have a combined market capitalisation of nearly USD130bn. The transaction is expected to generate cost synergies of approximately USD3bn and growth synergies of around USD1bn.

Dow and DuPont have already secured clearance in several jurisdictions, including approvals in the US, Europe, Brazil and China. Currently, both the companies are working constructively with regulators to receive clearance from the remaining jurisdictions. The companies anticipate the merger will be completed in August this year with the intended spin-offs to occur within 18 months of closing.
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Last month's SPVC imports to Ukraine grew to 11,400 tonnes from 7,100 tonnes in April. Local companies partially offset a shortage of resin from European producers by higher shipments from the US. Overall SPVC imports were about 39,400 tonnes in January-May 2017, compared to 49,200 tonnes a year earlier. Demand for suspension from local pipes and window profile producers subsided significantly.

The structure of PVC imports into Ukraine by countries looked the following way over the stated period.

Last month's SPVC imports from the United States rose to 6,400 tonnes from 3 tonnes in April, local companies were forced to increase their purchasing of North American resin because of the restrictions of European producers in the past three months. Imports of North American resin totalled 13,100 tonnes in January-May of 2017 versus 31,200 tonnes a year earlier.

May shipments of European PVC to the Ukrainian market remained at the level of April and were 3,100 tonnes. Overall imports of European PVC to Ukraine totalled 18,500 tonnes over the stated period, compared to 13,900 tonnes a year earlier.

Last month's imports of Russian SPVC grew to 1,900 tonnes from 761 tonnes in April. Despite the introduction of a ban on shipments of resin from two producers, other manufacturers still managed to increase their presence in the local market. Shipments of Russian resin were 7,600 tonnes in the first five months of 2017, compared to 3,800 tonnes a year earlier.

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MOSCOW (MRC) -- The Dow Chemical Company and 1QB Information Technologies (1QBit) announced a collaboration agreement to develop quantum computing tools for the chemicals and materials science technology spaces, said Hydrocarbonprocessing.

The two companies will accelerate the deployment of quantum computing across a range of applications relevant to the chemical sector.

"Our preliminary work with 1QBit has been very encouraging," said A.N. Sreeram, senior vice president, R&D, and chief technology officer for Dow. "Together with 1QBit, we have achieved ‘proof of concept’ for the application of quantum computing in areas relevant to Dow. With this new, multi-year agreement, we intend to develop a robust capability in the quantum computing space, further advancing our world-class innovation capabilities and maximizing shareholder return."

The collaboration will augment Dow’s discovery process by building fundamental understanding of new chemicals and materials. The combination of next-generation computational methodologies with experimental design will drive new acceleration of product and process development.

"We are pleased to be working with Dow on leading-edge quantum computing software development for the material sciences," said Andrew Fursman, chief executive officer for 1QBit. "Dow brings a powerful science machine and global market access in the chemical and materials sectors. We have been very impressed with the quality of the opportunity uncovered in the initial phases of this collaboration."

Over the last four years, 1QBit has developed new methods for machine learning, sampling, and optimization based on reformulating problems to meet the unique requirements of interfacing with quantum computers and leveraging their capabilities.

The terms of the agreement were not disclosed.
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