Rotomolder Solar Plastics expands into Mexico

MOSCOW (MRC) -- U.S.-based rotational molder Solar Plastics LLC has announced plans to expand into Mexico, said Canplastics.

The company, which is headquartered in Delano, Minnesota, is building a new manufacturing plant in Monterrey, Nuevo Leon, Mexico. The plant is currently under construction, Solar Plastics officials said in a Sept. 13 news release, and the firm expects to take occupancy of the building in the fourth quarter of this year.

The release said that “recent significant growth and existing customer volume commitments” are forecasted to push the company’s current facilities in Delano and in Davenport, Iowa beyond capacity limits. “Trends in labour availability was a major factor into the decision to look at additional manufacturing capacity outside of its current footprint,” the release also said.

"We are experiencing increased domestic demands across all of our business sectors,” Solar Plastics president Sam Rosen said. “When you add in our customers ‘re-shoring’ efforts, it made the additional investment opportunity very attractive."

The facility will start with 55,000 square feet, which can be increased to over 300,000 square feet. Production is scheduled to begin in the first half of 2022. Solar Plastics is a contract manufacturer, and is part of the ATEK Companies.

As MRC informed earlier, Amcor Rigid Plastics, part of Australia-based global packaging supplier Amcor, has announced that it will invest USD40 million in a major expansion of its Bellevue, Ohio manufacturing facility.

According to MRC's ScanPlast report, Russia's estimated PET consumption totalled 411,200 tonnes in the first six month of 2021, up by 12% year on year. Russian companies processed 62,910 tonnes in June, compared to 85,890 tonnes a month earlier.
MRC

MOSCOW (MRC) -- Nizhnekamskneftekhim (NKNKh, part of TAIF) has launched the production of a new brand of low-flow general-purpose polystyrene PSON 30FEB, which is primarily intended for food packaging manufacturers, the company said.

It is noted that a distinctive feature of the new PSON brand is a high molecular weight and practically no residual styrene, therefore it can be used in the extrusion of foamed products, for the production of foamed heat-insulating sheets, as well as for the production of biaxially oriented (BOPS) polymer films.

The company emphasizes that the food film obtained from general-purpose polystyrene grade PSON 30FEB is safe for human health, withstands high mechanical and thermal loads, and does not enter into chemical reactions with food.

As per ICIS-MRC Price report, Nizhnekamskneftekhim (NKNKh, part of TAIF Group) shut its polyethylene (PE) production capacities for a scheduled turnaround on 17 September. According to the producer"s clients, producer started the scheduled shutdown of linear low density polyethylene (LLDPE) on 17 September. The shutdown will be short and will last for about 10 days. As it was reported earlier, Nizhnekamskneftekhim shut its ethylene production for scheduled turnaround from 14 September to 16 September.

According to MRC's ScanPlast, July total estimated consumption of PS and styrene plastics in Russia increased by 4% compared to the same month last year and amounted to 46,540 tonnes. The total consumption of PS in the country amounted to 328,980 tonnes, up 23% year on year in January - July 2021.

Nizhnekamskneftekhim is one of the largest petrochemical companies in Eastern Europe, occupying a leading position among domestic producers of synthetic rubbers, plastics and ethylene. Part of the TAIF group of companies, Tatarstan. The nomenclature of manufactured products includes more than 120 items. The products of the joint-stock company are exported to 50 countries in Europe, America and Southeast Asia. The share of exports in the total volume of production is about 50%.
MRC

MOSCOW (MRC) -- Royal Dutch Shell plans to start producing low-carbon jet fuel at scale by 2025, in an attempt to encourage the world's airlines to reduce greenhouse gas emissions, reported Reuters.

Aviation, accounting for 3% of the world's carbon emissions, is considered one of the toughest sectors to tackle due to a lack of alternative technologies to jet fueled-engines.

Shell, one of the world's largest oil traders, said it aims to produce 2 million tons of sustainable aviation fuel (SAF) by 2025, a ten-fold increase from today's total global output.

Produced from waste cooking oil, plants and animal fats, SAF could cut up to 80% of aviation emissions, Shell said.

Shell, which at present only supplies SAF produced by others, including Finnish refiner Neste, said on Monday it wants green jet fuel, which can be blended with regular aviation fuel with little need to change plane engines, to make up 10% of its global aviation fuel sales by 2030.

SAF accounts for less than 0.1% of today's global aviation fuel demand, which reached around 330 million tons in 2019, investment bank Jefferies said.

Growing the market faces several hurdles, primarily due to the cost of SAF, which is currently up to 8 times higher than regular jet fuel, and the limited availability of feedstock.

Shell said it wants others to follow its lead.

"We also expect other companies to add to it with their own production plants," Anna Mascolo, head of Shell Aviation, told Reuters.

The United States said last week it wants to cut aircraft greenhouse-gas emissions by 20% by the end of the decade by significantly boosting SAF usage.

Anglo-Dutch shell, which aims to reduce emissions from fuels it sells to net zero by 2050, is in the midst of a large overhaul aimed at producing more low-carbon fuels such as biodiesel and SAF, as well as hydrogen. Shell plans to build a biofuels processing plant at its Rotterdam refinery with an annual capacity of 820,000 tons, with SAF set to make up more than half of the output. The plant is expected to start production in 2024.

In a new report on the decarbonisation of aviation published together with Deloitte, Shell called for the sector to cut its emissions to net zero by 2050.

As MRC informed earlier, Royal Dutch Shell plans to reduce its refining and chemicals portfolio by more than half, it said in July 2020 without giving a precise timeframe. The move is part of the Anglo-Dutch company's plan to shrink its oil and gas business and expand its renewables and power division to reduce greenhouse gas emissions sharply by 2050.

Ethylene and propylene are the main feedstocks for the production of polyethylene (PE) and polypropylene (PP), respectively.

According to MRC's ScanPlast report, Russia's estimated PE consumption totalled 1,176,860 tonnes in the first half of 2021, up by 5% year on year. Shipments of exclusively low density polyethylene (LDPE) decreased. At the same time, PP shipments to the Russian market were 727,160 tonnes in the first six months of 2021, up by 31% year on year. Supply of homopolymer PP and block-copolymers of propylene (PP block copolymers) increased. Supply of statistical copolymers of propylene (PP random copolymers) subsided.

Royal Dutch Shell plc is an Anglo-Dutch multinational oil and gas company headquartered in The Hague, Netherlands and with its registered office in London, United Kingdom. It is the biggest company in the world in terms of revenue and one of the six oil and gas "supermajors". Shell is vertically integrated and is active in every area of the oil and gas industry, including exploration and production, refining, distribution and marketing, petrochemicals, power generation and trading.
MRC

MOSCOW (MRC) -- Volgograd Kaustik, Russia's fourth largest polyvinyl chloride (PVC) producer, shut down its production for a scheduled turnaround, according to ICIS-MRC Price report.

A plant's representative said PVC production was taken off-stream for scheduled repairs on 20 September. The outage will be quite long and will last for about 21 days. The plant's annual production capacity is 90,000 tonnes.

It is also worth noting that this is the last shutdown for a scheduled maintenance at Russian PVC plants in 2021. SayanskKhimPlast and Bashkir Soda Company shut their production capacities in June-July. RusVinyl does not plan to carry out maintenance works this year.

JSC Kaustik is the principal plant of the group, manufactures basic products - caustic soda, chloroparaffins, synthetic hydrochloric acid, chlorine trademark, polyvinyl chloride, sodium hypochlorite, etc .; CJSC NikoMag - production of anti-icing materials, magnesium chloride, magnesium oxide and hydroxide; Zirax, Ltd. - production of high-purity reagents for various industries and JSC Poligran - the production of plastic compounds and rigid PVC compounds.
MRC

MOSCOW (MRC) - The company "Geksa - netkanyye materialy" (Moscow region, part of the GEXA Group) intends to use a loan from the Industrial Development Fund (IDF) in the amount of Rb350 m to modernize the production of nonwovens with an increase in capacity at its site in the Tver region by 65% ??- up to 1,700 tonnes per month, the FRP said.

The company plans to increase production of disposable medical products, including surgical kits made from woven fabrics of its own production, as well as a wide range of surgical clothing and underwear for medical institutions, including covering materials for agriculture and construction under-roof single-layer and multi-layer membranes for wind insulation.

In August, GEXA Group opened a representative office of Gexa France in France, which will be engaged in the export of products from Russia to Europe. The representative office is organized in the commune of Villeneuve-Loubet in the south-east of France in the Provence-Alpes-Cote d'Azur region.

Earlier it was reported that in 2018 the company "Geksa - netkanyye materialy" opened the production of specialized composite nonwovens and disposable medical products at its enterprise in the Toropetsky district of the Tver region.

According to MRC"s ScanPlast report, Russia's PP shipments to the Russian market were 727,160 tonnes in the first six months of 2021, up by 31% year on year. Shipments of propylene homopolymer (homopolymer PP) and block copolymers of propylene (PP block copolymer) increased. Supply of injection moulding statistical copolymer of propylene (PP-random) has decreased.

The production branch "Geksa - netkanyye materialy" in the Toropetsky District of the Tver Region is one of the largest sites for the production of nonwovens using spunbond technology, which is the basis for the manufacture of building membranes, medical products, as well as covering materials for agriculture. The total area of ??production, warehouse and administrative premises is 6 hectares. The Toropetsky plant produces over 18 thousand tons of spunbond per year, and the plant has also debugged the production of a volumetric geogrid (12,000 tonnes per year) and flat polymer filaments (more than 7,200 tonnes per year). Three sewing workshops produce over 220 million medical products a year.
MRC