Huhtamaki to consolidate its flexible packaging footprint in Europe with closure of the manufacturing site in Czech Republic

Huhtamaki has made the decision to consolidate the production footprint of its Flexible Packaging segment in Europe and will be closing its Flexible Packaging production facility in Prague, Czech Republic, said the company.

All production and supporting activities at the facility will be scaled down during the second half of the year, with the closure of the operations completed by March 31, 2024. Production will gradually be transferred to Huhtamaki’s other manufacturing sites.

The decision affects all 198 employees in the site. Huhtamaki will support its employees during this period, including providing information about vacancies in other Huhtamaki units in the Czech Republic and across Europe.

Huhtamaki currently has two manufacturing units in Czech Republic. The closure of the Prague site does not affect the Fiber packaging operations in Okrisky which today employs 274 people.

The Flexible Packaging Prague facility does not represent a material share of the sales or profits of Huhtamaki. Huhtamaki will book closure-related costs of approximately EUR 35 million in the second quarter of 2023. The costs will be booked as items affecting comparability and are mostly non-cash items. Over time, the closure is expected to be cash positive and improve our competitiveness in Europe.

We remind, Huhtamaki inaugurated a 12,500m2 expansion of its paper-based packaging manufacturing site in Nules, Spain. The expansion involved a EUR20m (USD20.8m) investment, which included a grant of EUR2.2m (USD2.3m) from the Conselleria de Hacienda y Modelo Economico. Huhtamaki said the expansion will begin production this January and double the site’s capacity.

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Indonesia's state-controlled gas company Perusahaan Gas Negara on Thursday said it would supply natural gas to a petrochemical plant operated by a unit of South Korea's Lotte Chemical Corp, saie Reuters .

PGN signed a gas sales agreement with Lotte Chemical Indonesia (LCI) to supply between 2.62 billion and 10.5 billion British thermal units per day (BBTUD) to power Lotte's plant to produce ethylene, PGN said.

"PGN will build MRS gas distribution infrastructure and gas pipelines to LCI's boiler for gas starting June 2024," PGN official Sonny Rahmawan Abdi said in a statement.

Lotte Chemical last year said it was building a USD3.9-B petrochemical complex in Indonesia's Banten province to annually produce 1 million tons of ethylene, 520,000 tons of propylene, 250,000 tons of polypropylene, as well as downstream products.

We remind, PT Chandra Asri Petrochemical Tbk (Chandra Asri; Jakarta, Indonesia) and Indonesia Investment Authority (INA), Indonesia’s sovereign wealth fund, have signed a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) to collaboratively develop a world-scale chlor-alkali plant in Indonesia.

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Solvay announces the new names of the future independent publicly traded companies that will result from its planned separation into two industry leaders: SOLVAY and SYENSQO, said the company.

The new names will be effective upon completion of the planned separation of Solvay, which is on track to be completed in December 2023, following the satisfaction of customary conditions.

Its commodities business, referred to as EssentialCo since the split was first announced, will remain as Solvay, while the specialties segment (‘SpecialtyCo’) will now be called SYENSQO. Completion of the separation of the two business units is expected in December 2023, subject to satisfactory conditions.

Solvay will comprise the mono-technology businesses including soda ash, peroxides, silica, solvents and rare earths, which generated €5.6bn in net sales in 2022. SYENSQO will cover specialty polymers, composites, surfactants, aroma, technology solutions, and oil and gas, as well as the four growth platforms in batteries, green hydrogen, thermoplastic composites and renewable materials, and biotechnology.

In 2022, SYNESQO generated net sales of around €7.9bn. Solvay initially announced the separation in March 2022 in a bid to unlock value and attract investment opportunities.

We remind, Solvay has opened a new application development lab (ADL) in Shanghai, China, to expand its global footprint of its research and innovation facilities. The new facility will develop solutions for applications industries including automotive, new energy, life solutions and pharmacy, smart devices and semiconductors for Solvay’s customers active in local and global end markets.

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A major increase in PET imports threatens the competitiveness of the EU’s industry, along with its objective to improve the waste management of plastics, said Sustainableplastics.

PET imports doubled between 2021 and 2022, reaching 1.9Mt, driven by increased demand for rPET in the EU. India, China and Turkey were among the biggest exporters in terms of volumes and value followed by Indonesia, Egypt and Vietnam.

As a result, imports represented nearly 30% of the total demand for PET in Europe in 2022, compared to only 23% in 2020. The rise has been attributed to the 2025 recycled content targets of 25% for beverage bottles, and consequent rise in rPET prices on the continent, it is a market shift that is strongly impacting the European industry.

“Following these concerning market developments, the EU has initiated an anti-dumping proceeding against China for the imports of PET throughout 2022,” said Herbert Snell, PRE PET Working Group vice chair and managing director at Multiport GmbH - MultiPet GmbH, part of the Veolia Group.

The recycled PET is imported into the EU at significantly lower prices. It is therefore vital to ensure the material is compliant with the stringent EU food contact regulations, and does not unfairly disadvantage Europe’s efforts to create a robust rPET industry. According to Casper van den Dungen, vice-president of Plastics Recyclers Europe, this will ‘additionally require full verification of the traceability of imported polymers by end users to avoid using self-declarations as the means of reporting recycled materials participating to the EU targets’.

Enforcement of the EU rules for goods and materials from outside the continent is key to maintaining a level playing field for all actors. Failure to do so will undermine all efforts to promote the circularity of plastic products placed on the market, as well as the substantial investments made in Europe in the recycling industry and its capacities.

We remind, MEGlobal has nominated its July 2023 monoethylene glycol (MEG) Asian Contract Price (ACP) at USD790/tonne, down by USD50/tonne from its June ACP, said the company. The price is on a CFR (cost & freight) Asia basis.


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Neste has given the final green light to a project that will see the construction of upgrading facilities for liquefied plastic waste at its Porvoo refinery in Finland, said Sustainableplastics.

The company is spending EUR111 million on installing capacity to upgrade 150,000 tons of liquefied waste plastic per year. Next to building new assets, Neste will also retrofit existing assets at the Porvoo refinery to scale up chemical recycling fast and efficiently. The output - upgraded liquefied waste plastic - will be processed in the conventional refinery, replacing a portion of the fossil resources processed at the Porvoo refinery.

Liquefied waste plastic is the product obtained from pyrolysing plastic waste. Pyrolysis oil tends not to be able to be used as is, but requires three further processing steps - pretreatment, upgrading and refining - to turn it into better quality and usable feedstock for new plastics. By incorporating the upgrading step, Neste can opt to use a lower-quality plastic waste to serve as input feedstock. Following the upgrading step, it is then processed into a high-quality petrochemical feedstock in its existing refinery in Porvoo.

The present investment is part of a broader project called Pulse (Pretreatment and Upgrading of Liquefied waste plastic to Scale up circular Economy), which has received an EU Innovation Fund grant of 135 million euros if fully implemented and is targeting a total capacity of 400,000 tons per year.

“We have developed our capability to process circular raw material at the Porvoo refinery over the recent years and are now set to build a respective facility. The new facility is planned to be finalized in the first half of 2025,” said Markku Korvenranta, executive vice president in Neste’s Oil Products.

At the Porvoo refinery, the preparation work was successfully completed during the first half of 2023, enabling the construction work to commence without any delay. Neste’s ambition is to make the Porvoo oil refinery in Finland the most sustainable refinery in Europe by 2030. The company has committed to reaching carbon-neutral production by 2035, and reducing the carbon emission intensity of sold products by 50% by 2040.

We remind, Neste is looking to build capacities at its Porvoo site to process 400,000 tons of liquefied waste plastic per year in the course of project PULSE, which is funded by the EU Innovation Fund. From 2030 onwards, Neste wants to process more than 1 million tons of waste plastic per year.

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