Bodo Moller buys Spain General Adhesivos

German chemical distribution group Bodo Moller Chemie has expanded its business in the Iberian Peninsula with the acquisition of General Adhesivos, an adhesives specialist located not far from the industrial centers of Tarragona and Barcelona in Spain, said Chemanager-online.

The takeover also gives Bodo Moller Chemie a second laboratory, which offers mechanical plastic analysis and process simulations, adding to its existing adhesive competence center in Poland.

“This merger is an essential component for us to demonstrate our own expertise on the Iberian Peninsula. Moreover, we expand our overall know-how through the team and the laboratory of General Adhesivos, pursuing a pan-European approach and a general organic growth strategy in this way solely through the two laboratories in Poland and Spain,” said Frank Haug, Bodo Moller Chemie’s chairman.

The company based in Offenbach, near Frankfurt, added that the combined company “constitutes a significant heavyweight in the adhesive market,” noting that both firms have been working for manufacturers such as Huntsman, Henkel, 3M and Medmix for many years.

In December 2020, Bodo Moller Chemie opened an office in Madrid in order to expand its footprint and meet demand in Spain and Portugal, especially for polyurethane-based products used in the coatings, adhesives, sealants and elastomers industry.
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Synpet Technologies wants to build a plastic waste recycling plant in Genk, it announced in a press release. The unit is expected to be operational in 2024 and employ around 70 people, said Chemicalrecycling.

Synpet has been working on its plastic waste recycling process since 2014. All waste containing carbon is targeted, including dirty non-recyclable plastics.

Concretely, the plastic is transformed into synthetic naphtha (normally a derivative of petroleum), which can be used to produce new plastic materials. Additionally, the process also produces natural gas, biochar, and liquid organic fertilizer.

In 2016, Synpet set up a small pilot plant in Istanbul. The company now wants to build a commercial factory in Belgium.

The plant will be located in Genk and will have the capacity to process some 180,000 tonnes of plastic per year. This is an investment of 90 million euros, the financing of which is almost complete. Depending on permit applications and construction work, the plant is expected to be operational by the end of 2024.

In addition, Synpet is already considering a second factory in Belgium. Finally, Synpet also plans to eventually transfer its research and development site from Turkey to Belgium. This would create additional jobs in Genk.

We remind, Indaver has started building a new facility for recycling end-of-life plastics into valuable basic chemicals for the industry. This Plastics2Chemicals facility will recycle approximately 65,000 tonnes of end-of-life plastics and will thus become the first and largest fully-industrial plant on an EU scale. The foundation stone was laid in September 2022. Start-up is scheduled for early 2024 with an initial capacity of 26,000 tonnes. This will be scaled up to run at full capacity from 2027 onwards. The new facility will provide direct employment for approximately 50 people.
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The European Commission has approved the proposed USD11 billion acquisition of Dupont's mobility and materials business by U.S. chemicals company Celanese Corp (CE.N), on the condition that the latter divests a plastics-producing business, said Reuters.

Celanese announced the deal in February but had to offer remedies to address EU antitrust concerns. The combined entity would have been the largest producer of thermoplastic copolyester (TPC) in the European Economic Area and globally, with only a few alternative suppliers remaining. The product is primarily used by automakers.

The EU approval is conditional on Celanese divesting its global TPC business, including its production facility in Italy and certain brands. Celanese has proposed selling the business to Italian engineering plastics producer Taro Plast S.p.a.

“The commitments offered by Celanese, divesting a stand-alone business, fully remove our competition concerns as they ensure that a player will remain in the market,” the Commission’s competition policy head Margrethe Vestager said in a statement.

We remind, in February 18, 2022 DuPont announced it has entered into a definitive agreement with Celanese Corporation to divest a majority of the Mobility & Materials segment including the Engineering Polymers business line and select product lines within the Performance Resins and Advanced Solutions business lines for USD11.0 billion in cash, subject to customary transaction adjustments in accordance with the definitive agreement, which represents an enterprise value multiple of ~14x 2021 operating EBITDA.
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Uniper and Technip Energies have signed an agreement that awards the Front-End Engineering Design (FEED) study contract to Technip for the company’s H2Maasvlakte project, Uniper announced.

“As part of the FEED scope of work, a multidisciplinary team from Technip Energies will deliver the full FEED package, including a design for a large-scale water electrolysis system, the balance of plant as well as site integration,” The press release said. The contract will be “starting immediately,” Uniper said in the press release.

Uniper said that the H2Maasvlakte project was its “flagship hydrogen project” and the company is expecting to realise 100MW of electrolyser capacity for the production of renewable hydrogen by 2025. The project aims to gradually scale-up to a total electrolysis capacity of 500MW for renewable hydrogen by 2030 — the Dutch Government has set targets of building 500MW of electrolyser capacity by 2025 and 3-4GW by 2030.

Electricity for hydrogen production at Maasvlakte is due to be sourced from offshore wind developments, which according to Uniper, will have a capacity of some 7.4GW. In mid-September, Siemens and Shell announced that they had signed a memorandum of understanding (MoU) for collaboration on developing low-carbon and highly efficient solutions that support hydrogen production, with Shell citing specifically its Holland Hydrogen 1 (HH1) project in Maasvlakte with 200MW of electrolyser capacity — equivalent to about 0.73TWh/year of renewable hydrogen, ICIS data showed.

Maasvlakte, located near Rotterdam in the Netherlands, is home to “current and future customers from the chemical, energy, and petrochemical industry."

We remind, Technip Energies has been selected by PTTEP HK Offshore Ltd. to perform the Front-End Engineering Design (FEED) of the Lang Lebah Onshore Gas Plant 2 (OGP2) project located in Bintulu, Sarawak, in Malaysia. The FEED contract covers the design of an onshore gas plant including the integrated flow assurance of the native CO2 capture, compression and transportation via pipeline up to the offshore wellhead platform where it will be reinjected.
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OMV Petrom, the largest integrated energy company in South-Eastern Europe, invests approximately EUR 130 million in the next 3 years to build a new unit of aromatic products at Petrobrazi refinery, said the company.

The unit will function at modern BAT (Best Available Technology) operating standards with low environmental impact. The processing capacity of the new unit is about 1,500 tons/day of reformed gasoline.

Radu Caprau, member of the OMV Petrom Executive Board responsible for the Refining and Marketing activity: "The demand for gasoline continues to be robust in Southeastern Europe. In parallel with the development of our offer for alternative mobility products, we want to provide our customers with the products they need, at high environmental standards. Other significant investments will follow at Petrobrazi, both in the technological efficiency of the refinery as well as in the production of second-generation biofuels."

The process of replacing the existing aromatic products unit will be carried out between 2023 and 2025. The aromatic products unit currently functioning at Petrobrazi Refinery was put into production in 1961. This is the only facility within a Romanian refinery that can ensure gasoline at European standards.

The new unit of aromatic products will be put into operation in 2026. It will ensure continuity of production of gasoline with a volumetric benzene content of less than 1%, according to current European standards. At the same time, a larger amount of toluene will be possible to be obtained from the process of gasoline production. Toluene can be used to obtain commercial gasoline with improved octane number, but it can also be used as a solvent in the chemical industry to obtain paints, adhesives or in processes of obtaining leather products.

The Petrobrazi refinery has a total crude oil processing capacity of 4.5 million tons per year. Since 2005, OMV Petrom has invested over EUR 1.8 billion in the refinery, with a third of this investment contributing to reducing the environmental impact.

We remind, OMV, the integrated, international oil, gas and petrochemicals company headquartered in Vienna, Austria, will invest around EUR200 million (USD244 million) in biofuel production at the Schwechat Refinery in Austria.
OMV is currently investing in the Schwechat Refinery so it will be able to substitute large quantities of fossil diesel with biodiesel in an innovative co-processing approach.

OMV Petrom is the largest integrated energy company in South-Eastern Europe, with an annual Group hydrocarbon production of approximately 47 million boe in 2021. The Group has a refining capacity of 4.5 million tons annually and operates an 860 MW high-efficiency power plant. The Group is present on the oil products retail market in Romania and neighboring countries through approximately 790 filling stations under two brands – OMV and Petrom.
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