Peter Huntsman new Chairman of the Board of Huntsman

MOSCOW (MRC) -- Peter R. Huntsman, President and Chief Executive Officer, has been elected Chairman of the Board of Directors of Huntsman, an additional role he assumed as of 1 January 2018, as per GV.

The company’s founder, Jon M. Huntsman, stepped down as Executive Chairman on 31 December 2017 and the role of Executive Chairman was eliminated. After serving as Executive Chairman of the company he founded 48 years ago, Jon M. Huntsman will continue to serve on the Board of Directors as a Director and Chairman Emeritus.

"I am honored to be taking on this responsibility at a time when the company has never been stronger and had more opportunities before it. This will be a smooth transition as our founder, my father, will continue in a valuable capacity as a Board member, maintaining vital relations with customers, suppliers, and policy makers as well as sharing his total 56 years of industry experience," said Peter Huntsman.

"It's a high honor to turn the chairmanship role over to Peter Huntsman, who I consider to be one of the world’s outstanding CEO’s. Huntsman Corporation will continue to experience its sound growth and strong financial controls under Peter’s experienced oversight. It has been both a great challenge and a special privilege to be chairman for almost half a century," said Jon Huntsman, Sr.

As MRC informed before, in March 2017, Huntsman Corporation announced a plan to close the white end finishing and packaging operation of its titanium dioxide (TiO2) manufacturing facility based in Calais, France, during the third quarter 2017. The announced plan follows the 2015 closure of the black end manufacturing operations and would result in the closure of the entire facility.

Huntsman Corporation is a publicly traded global manufacturer and marketer of differentiated chemicals with 2016 revenues of approximately USD10 billion.
MRC

MOSCOW (MRC) -- Above-average results in the past two years has resulted in a renewed sense of optimism within the German plastics packaging industry, according to a recent survey, said Plasticseurope.

Conducted in Dec 2017 and participated in by 100 people, the survey, commissioned by German plastics packaging industry association IK Industrievereinigung Kunststoffverpackungen e.V. (IK), found that 90% of companies questioned rated the current economic situation as good.

“This is a significant rise in the percentage of confident views compared to the beginning of 2017 when 70% of IK members rated the economic environment as good,” the association added. Survey respondents also rated their own sales expectations more positively for the first quarter of 2018, while their assessment of export remained pretty much the same as 2017.

Almost 60% of respondent also said they expected higher raw materials prices, which could affect the price development of plastics packaging. “The profit situation, however, remains tense,” the IK survey added.

According to IK, the results of the survey show “a renewed increase in expectations among companies after the two previous years had delivered above-average results.”

However, commenting on the findings of the survey, IK general manager Ulf Kelterborn warned that the “promising” forecast should not obscure the fact that Germany, as an economic location, was faced with “growing threats”.

“Besides the still unresolved problem of high electricity costs, Germany now needs to prepare for even stronger international tax competition,” he pointed out. Kelterborn pointed to corporate tax cuts in the US, which he said had led to calls for corresponding tax reforms from China and other industrial nations.

“The effective tax burden for companies in Germany of over 28% is already too high comparatively and urgently needs to be corrected,” he added. Other locational risks, the IK said, were the “increasing skills shortage” and in the spatial and digital infrastructure.

These factors, warned the IK, could worsen and hinder growth “faster than expected”. “A viable government needs to make forward-looking decisions in this area as soon as possible,” the IK concluded.
MRC

MOSCOW (MRC) -- Finnish packaging firm Huhtamaki has announced new measures to further consolidates its operations in China, said Plasteurope.

The company, which sold a vacated manufacturing facility in Guangzhou, China, last year has announced the closure of its manufacturing unit in Shandong, China. Following the move, which impacted 200 jobs, Huhtamaki plans to start sourcing the product range externally, the company said 28 Dec.

In addition, the company, which recently acquired International Paper's foodservice packaging operations in China, is planning to consolidate operations in Tianjin. Having acquired two manufacturing plants in Tianjin and Shanghai through the takeover, Huhtamaki said it is now planning to consolidate its Tianjin operations into one unit.

“All manufacturing operations will be transferred to the unit acquired from IP,” said the Finnish company, adding that employees at the closing unit will be offered equivalent work opportunities at the continuing Tianjin unit. The transfer is expected to be completed by the end of the first quarter of 2018.

With the restructuring of its Chinese operations, the company’s production footprint in that country will consist of three manufacturing plants. The plants, which Huhtamaki said will be “efficient and focused” will be in Guangzhou, Shanghai and Tianjin.
MRC

MOSCOW (MRC) -- A Chinese petrochemical company is keen on expanding in the Philippines, adding to the growing list of business intentions and expansion projects being received from large companies based in China, reported GV with regerence to the Department of Trade and Industry (DTI).

Trade Secretary Ramon Lopez said Handi Group president Hanling Wu discussed with him in a recent meeting the possibility of the company investing in a petroleum refining and petrochemical manufacturing facility in the country.

"We welcome business intentions to strengthen our petrochemical industry, which the government actively supports. They expressed strong confidence on the business environment stability during the Duterte administration," Lopez said.

Handi Group is one of the largest and advanced private specialty oil producers in China. The conglomerate is based in Hainan province and engages in multiple industries, including oil refinery, chemical industry, trading, investment and financing.

The group, through its subsidiaries Hainan Handi Sunshine Petrochemical Co. Ltd., Hainan Handi Petrochemical Co. Ltd., Handi Lubricant Technology (China) Co. Ltd., Handi Sunshine Trading Co. Ltd., and Handi Investment, has established a full scale and long-term strategic cooperation with large international energy companies such as ExxonMobil, Total, Chevron and BASF.

Lopez said he suggested for the facility to be put up in Mindanao, which will be suitable for the company’s power, land and accessibility requirements.
MRC

MOSCOW (MRC) -- The 250,000-square-foot bottle-to-bottle PET recycling plant processes more than 100 million pounds of plastic bottles annually, said Plasticseurope.

Italian recycling machinery supplier Amut Group has supplied a washing line to a new recycling facility built by US company CarbonLITE, in Dallas, Texas. In a statement 11 Jan, said the company said that a "state of the art” washing line had been supplied to the plant, which is the second facility of this size in operation in the US.

The plant, which started operation in September 2017, is capable of producing over 12,000 pounds per hour of "highest quality" PET from MRF (materials recycling facility) post-consumer bales. The CarbonLITE PET recycling project follows two major PET recycling projects to which Amut supplied in North America: Unifi in Reidsville, North Carolina, and Petstar Coca-Cola Mexico.

The 250,000-square-foot bottle-to-bottle PET recycling plant processes more than 100 million pounds of plastic bottles annually. The washing section, Amut claimed, is capable of reaching a capacity of six tonnes per hour.

The line, according to Anthony Georges, president of Amut North America, is equipped with Amut’s “de-labeller” patent technology and a wet whole bottle pre-wash.

"When you are dealing with co-mingled MRF bottle bales you need to be able to detect and remove all non-PET and colour PET containers prior to entering the final washing process," Georges explained.

Amut’s double-stage process includes a first ‘de-labeller’, which carries out dry cleaning and detaches most of the shrink sleeve labels, and a second wet ‘de-labeller’, which prewashes whole bottles.

"This wet bottle washing technology utilises the filtered recycled flake washing water; therefore, it does not increase the consumption of fresh water used in the complete cleaning process," Georges added.

Amut has also supplied a wet grinding system to the plant which turns bottles into flakes, along with two ‘flake friction washers’, and two ‘sink-float’ separation machines, which are able to capture the polyolefin caps.
MRC