The Egyptian unrest has shaken the Middle East markets

(ICIS) -- The Egyptian unrest has shaken the Middle East markets, with shares plunging in many countries in the region on Sunday. Meanwhile, the 192km Suez Canal has been operating as usual during the protests, with 45 to 50 ships passing through each day, a canal official told Reuters.

A company associate at Egyptian Petrochemicals Company (EPC) in Alexandria, Egypt, said that its refinery complex at Amerya was running ⌠as per normal, adding that email communications were still down on Monday.

EPC is a subsidiary of state-run oil firm Egyptian General Petroleum Corporation.

A Chinese polyethylene (PE) trader told ICIS that email and phone communications with an Egyptian producer had been down since Sunday. But any disruption in Egyptian PE and polypropylene (PP) supply would have limited impact as Egypt exports very little material to China, he said.

Egypt exported 9,351 tonnes of homopolymer polypropylene and 15,792 tonnes of high density polyethylene (HDPE) to China in 2010, according to China Customs data. These are 36% and 34% lower, respectively, than the 14,650 tonnes of homopolymer PP and 24,055 tonnes of HDPE exported in 2009, the data showed.

MRC

(prw) -- Packaging and insulation producer Novostrat has launched what it claims will be Europe's biggest polyethylene foam plant in the Polish city of Olszyna in Lower Silesia.

The company, based in Pabianice, Poland, plans to export its entire output to countries in Western Europe, including France and Germany. The extruder located its largest production unit to date in a redundant furniture factory in an area close to Poland's borders with Germany and the Czech Republic.

Novostrat, already a supplier of PE foam packaging in Poland to global computer giant Dell, will produce PE foam material at the new facility for construction thermal and acoustic insulation and flooring underlay as well as for packaging.

MRC

(prw) -- The US Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) has expressed support for plastic bag bans in some parts of Hawaii. Plastic shopping bags are now banned from use in Maui and Kauai counties.

⌠The leadership shown by the counties of Maui and Kauai in banning these bags will help keep their environments pristine, said Jared Blumenfeld, EPA's San Francisco-based regional administrator for the Pacific Southwest.

⌠This will not only decrease the amount of plastic in the counties, but it will reduce the number of bags that end up in the Great Pacific Garbage Patch - an enormous area of floating plastic waste.

The County of Maui and Kauai join American Samoa in banning plastic shopping bags in the Pacific area. Other coastal cities in California, Oregon, Texas and North Carolina have already banned the use of the disposable shopping bags.

MRC

(ICIS) -- Spot polysilicon material in China is expected to fetch higher prices, following stronger deals just days before the Lunar New Year, as a burgeoning domestic solar market saps supply, traders said on Monday.

A recent 20-tonne cargo was done at yuan (CNY) 700,000/tonne ($106/tonne), or equivalent to $90.40/kg (┬66.90/tonne) ex-works, up from a previous spot deal that was sealed at CNY630,000/tonne, or equivalent to $81.70/kg ex-works, traders said.

Meanwhile, contract polysilicon deals ranged from $81-82/kg in China, they said. The bulk of polysilicon deals were agreed on a term basis, leaving spot supply scarce at a time of robust demand from solar module makers in China, traders said.

Polysilicon is the raw material used to make cells in solar panels.

The Lunar New Year will start on Thursday, with businesses across China closing for the festive holidays until next week.

MRC

(Arabian Oil and Gas) -- Abu Dhabi based plastics solutions provider Borouge has awarded a contract worth US$169 million to Hyundai Engineering and Construction of South Korea to build a cross-linkable polyethylene (XLPE) unit at its petrochemical plant in Ruwais, Abu Dhabi. With an annual capacity of 80,000 tonnes, the unit is an added-value complement to the low density polyethylene (LDPE) unit, enabling the manufacture of innovative plastics solutions for low to high voltage energy cables.

This is the final major contract to be awarded for the Borouge 3 mega-expansion project already underway in Abu Dhabi in the UAE. Hyundai Engineering and Construction are also providing the utilities and offsite facilities for the project.

When fully operational in mid-2014, Borouge 3 will more than double the plant's annual capacity to 4.5 million tonnes and create the largest integrated polyolefins plant in the world. Together with Borealis, Borouge aims to be the leading reliable long-term supplier of polymers to the global wire and cable infrastructure market.

MRC