Shin-Etsu SE Tylose and LBB Specialties form distribution partnership in North and Central America

LBB Specialities LLC (LBBS; Norwalk, Connecticut) has announced a new partnership with SE Tylose USA (Plaquemine, Louisiana), for cellulose excipients in the pharma excipients and nutra ingredients markets. Effective Nov. 1, 2024, this collaboration will span LBBS' life sciences and food and nutrition verticals across the US, Canada, the Caribbean and Central America. SE Tylose USA is an affiliate of Shin-Etsu Chemical Co, as per Chemweek.

The partnership will encompass Shin-Etsu SE Tylose’s cellulose excipients, which are used in pharmaceutical and nutraceutical applications for their functionalities such as binding, thickening and controlled release properties.

“This partnership with SE Tylose complements our existing portfolio of active pharmaceutical ingredients (APIs) and value-added excipients for solid dose applications in pharmaceuticals,” said Seth Burns, senior VP of Life Sciences at LBBS.

Shin-Etsu SE Tylose, based in Wiesbaden, Germany, produces approximately 65,000 metric tons per year of cellulose ether. Its products are used in construction materials to pharmaceuticals and food ingredients. LBBS brings a regulatory team to support customer development and dedicated technical marketing resources for product formulation and trends consultation, added LBBS.

Shin-Etsu Chemical will invest about 83 billion yen (USD545 million) to build a plant in Gunma Prefecture, Japan, to produce semiconductor materials. It is the first time in 56 years that Shin-Etsu Chemical has built a new production base in Japan.

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The US manufacturing sector continued to slump in September amid declines in output, new orders and employment, according Chemweek.

The seasonally adjusted headline PMI came to 47.3, down from 47.9 in August. A PMI below 50 indicates contraction, while a figure above 50 indicates expansion.

“The September PMI survey brings a whole slew of disappointing economic indicators regarding the health of the US economy,” said Chris Williamson, chief business economist at S&P Global Market Intelligence.

Output and new orders both fell at sharper rates in September, and employment decreased at the strongest pace since the start of 2010, if the period of the COVID-19 pandemic is excluded. Even so, business confidence ticked up amid optimism that new business will rally following the presidential election in early November.

“Factories reported the largest monthly drop in production for 15 months in response to a slump in new orders, in turn driving further reductions in employment and input buying as producers scaled back operating capacity,” said Williamson. “However, companies are sensing that at least part of the drop in demand is likely to be temporary, as spending, investment and inventory building have been paused in many cases amid the uncertainty caused by the presidential election.”

Williamson said the prospect of lower interest rates has raised confidence in the longer-term outlook, with firms anticipating that demand will be buoyed by lower borrowing costs. He added, however, that while the current weak demand environment has helped keep cost pressures low, the potential for geopolitical events to drive energy prices higher and possible spikes in shipping prices may both push costs upward.

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China’s butadiene imports jumped 150.3% month over month, but fell 37.3% year over year to 29,692 metric tons, according to the latest data by the China Customs Statistics Information Center data released on Oct. 1.

The month-over- month rise in butadiene imports was due to an increase in deepsea cargoes from the west. China imported 3,520 metric tons of butadiene from Europe and 11,477 metric tons from the Middle East, compared with none a month earlier, the data showed.

Meanwhile, China’s butadiene imports from Asia rose 23.8% month over month to 14,695 metric tons, the data showed.

Supplies from Europe are returning as an arbitrage window is opening again, market sources said to S&P Global Commodity Insights.

Downstream, China’s styrene butadiene rubber (SBR) imports stood at 28,139 metric tons in August, down 3.5% month over month, the data showed. Of the total, SBR imports from Russia stood at 10,701 metric tons, down 19.7% month over month.

It was previously reported that in 2023, the volume of the ABS plastics market in Russia amounted to 50.2 thousand tons, with about 65% of these materials imported. The share of Asian countries in imports reached 99%: South Korea accounted for 57%, China - 27%, Taiwan - 15%. Imports from China grew the most: about 9 times compared to 2021.

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LANXESS is selling its urethane systems business to Japanese chemicals producer UBE Corp for around €500 million, the German specialty chemicals firm said on Thursday.

“With this transaction LANXESS exits the last remaining polymer business,” the company said in a statement. The enterprise value of the deal amounts to €460 million, with expected proceeds of around €500 million, it said.

The urethane systems business comprises five manufacturing sites globally as well as application laboratories in the US, Europe and China. UBE will take over the business, which has around 400 employees and generated sales of around €250 million in the year to June 2024.

LANXESS expects the transaction to close in the first half of 2025. “The sale of Urethane Systems marks another milestone in our fast transformation into a pure-play specialty chemicals company, as we are divesting the last remaining polymer business in our portfolio,” said Matthias Zacher, chairman of the board of management of LANXESS.

“At the same time, we are using the proceeds from the transaction to strengthen our balance sheet by further reducing our net debt,” he added.

Last year, the chemical concern LANXESS left Russia, transferring its assets in the Lipetsk region to Russian businessman Vladimir Yakushin.

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Kazakhstan is mulling over the import of up to 500,000 tonnes of bitumen from Russia, the Energy Ministry said in a Thursday press release, as per Interfax.

"If necessary, we may have to import up to 500,000 tonnes of Russian bitumen after all domestically produced bitumen has been used," the press release says.

Bitumen production in Kazakhstan is expected to increase from 0.85 million tonnes in 2023 to 1 million-1.2 million tonnes in 2024, according to the ministry.

In the nine months of this year, the republic produced 712,000 tonnes of bitumen.

We remind, OPEC said in its September oil market report that it expected oil demand to grow 2.03 million bpd in 2024. Over the past two months, the alliance's experts have lowered their expectations for global oil consumption in 2024 by a total of 215,000 bpd in total.

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