TCG steps in to select new managing director for Haldia Petrochemicals

(plastemart) -- The Chatterjee Group has assumed responsibility of the selection process to find a new managing director for Haldia Petrochemicals, with the incumbent Swapan Bhowmik set to retire in three months. The post of managing director has been a long disputed topic between promoters TCG and the Bengal government.


Purnendu Chatterjee, chairman of TCG, is holding interviews on his own with probable candidates to head Bengal's showcase industrial venture. The candidates chosen by Purnendu will have to appear for another round of interview before a search panel that include chairman Tarun Das, Bengal government nominee and state industry secretary Dipankar Mukhopadhyay, independent member Jamshyd Godrej and vice-chairman Purnendu Chatterjee himself. The committee will shortlist the candidate only from the list that Chatterjee is going to provide.

MRC

SK Energy completes construction of the world's first naphtha cracker

(plastemart) -- South Korea's SK Energy has completed construction of the world's first naphtha cracking facility that uses advanced catalytic olefin technology (ACO) at Ulsan. This new facility using ACO will reduce carbon dioxide emissions and energy costs by 20% as compared with conventional method at the facility that can produce up to 40,000 tons of both ethylene and propylene. The ACO process can help lower the required temperature to under 700 degrees, from the conventional requirement of over 850 degrees Celsius (1,562 degrees Fahrenheit) for naphtha cracking process. This process allows for scalable production of propylene than ethylene if needed.

MRC

Restart planned for CPC's cracker in Kaohsiung

(plastemart) -- CPC Corp. plans to start its No. 4 naphtha cracker in Kaohsiung after the unit has been shut for over a month. The No. 4 plant was closed on November 3 for scheduled repairs. An earlier attempt to restart the cracker a day ago was aborted when dark smoke was detected at the unit.

MRC

Billionaire buys half of Russia's Sibur

(prw) -- Russian billionaire Leonid Mikhelson has purchased 50 percent of Sibur LLC, a major Russian manufacturer of petrochemicals, plastics and rubber.


Moscow-based Sibur said that half the shares were acquired in the name of a company known as Miracle, which is controlled by Mikhelson, and the other half were purchased by a subsidiary, and will be re-registered in Miracle's name once Russia's anti-monopoly agency has approved the purchase.

Mikhelson is the head of Novatek, Russia's largest independent producer of natural gas. He ranked No. 189 on Forbes magazine's recent listing of the world's billionaires, with an estimated net worth of $4.4bn.

At K 2010 in Dusseldorf, Germany, Sibur president Dimitry Konov told journalists that the company was looking to international markets, particularly in China and Europe. The company had annual sales of more than $7bn, he said.

In 2009, Sibur produced 597,000 tonnes of polymers and 339,000 tonnes of rubber, he said.

MRC

Dow Europe announces price increases for PE resins

(adsalecprj) -- Dow Europe GmbH has announced to increase the prices for its polyethylene (PE) resins across the European, Middle Eastern and African regions.

Effective January 1, 2011, or as contract terms allow, Dow Europe will increase prices for all grades of its low-density polyethylene (LDPE), linear low-density polyethylene (LLDPE) and high-density polyethylene (HDPE) resins by 120 euros per metric ton.

MRC