Plastics performance boosts Dow Chemical

(Plastics News) -- Dow Chemical has wrapped up 2010, a year in which its overall sales and profit - and those of its plastics-related businesses - rebounded strongly from the prior year.

The company announced its fourth-quarter and full-year results on Feb. 3, showing full-year sales up almost 20% to almost $53.7bn, and full-year profit more than tripling to $2.3bn vs. 2009.

Dow's Plastics unit - including polyethylene and polypropylene - saw its 2010 sales climb 16 percent to almost $11.6bn, with pre-tax profit soaring 75% to $2.9bn. Plastics ranked as Dow's largest unit in 2010, based on both sales and pre-tax profit.

Dow's Performance Products unit - including polyurethanes, epoxy and emulsion polymers - rang up sales of $10.9bn in 2010, an increase of 20% vs. the prior year. Pretax profit at the unit jumped 18% to $1.3bn.

Also during 2010, Dow and ExxonMobil Chemical sold Dexco Polymers - the styrenic block copolymer maker in which they were equal partners - to TSRC for $168m. Dow's Equipolymers JV also sold a plant making PET resin and purified terephthalic feedstock in Italy during the year.

MRC

(ICIS) -- Shell's chemicals current cost of supplies (CCS) earnings surged 77% to $493m (┬355m) during the fourth quarter of 2010, from $279m in the same three-month period in 2009, the Netherlands-headquartered oil and gas major said on Thursday.

The company said its chemicals CCS earnings compared with the fourth quarter of 2009 reflected improved realised chemicals margins, higher chemicals sales volumes, higher income from equity-accounted investments and lower operating expenses.

Chemicals sales volumes increased by 10% year on year in the fourth quarter to 5,297,000 tonnes, from 4,835,000 tonnes during the same period in 2009. This was mainly due to the start-up of the Shell Eastern Petrochemicals Complex in Singapore, the company said.

Chemicals manufacturing plant availability was unchanged from the fourth quarter of 2009, at 95%, it added. For the full year, chemicals CCS earnings surged to $1.51bn from $316m in 2009.

MRC

(BASF) -- In 2010, BASF's research and development (R&D) expenditure reached a new record level, rising to nearly ┬1.5 billion (previous year 2009: ┬1.40 billion). The company attaches great importance to continuity in R&D and has further increased its commitment even in tough times, says Dr. Andreas Kreimeyer, Member of the Board of Executive Directors and Research Executive Director.

More than 9,600 R&D employees are working in international and interdisciplinary teams on about 3,000 projects aimed at finding answers to the challenges of the future. With new products, processes and system solutions, BASF is an important innovation driver for almost all sectors of industry and helps its customers achieve long-term success.

Major prerequisites for successful research are the right choice of strategic research topics, excellent project management and a smoothly functioning infrastructure. For example, BASF had set itself for 2010 the goal of generating sales of ┬6 billion with new and improved products and applications that have been on the market for less than five years. The company overachieved this goal by a substantial margin.

In the next five years, BASF will be investing a three-digit million sum for battery-related activities. These include the company's own R&D programs devoted to optimizing lithium-ion technology and developing completely new battery concepts, and cooperations with our partners, for example in the research network Electrochemistry and Batteries.

MRC

(Plastics Today) -- Officials at industrial packaging power Mauser Group say that over the past 12 months, the company, which blowmolds drums, intermediate bulk containers and other industrial packaging, has experienced increasing demand in all product areas and all countries. Mauser worked recently with plastics supplier Sabic to develop an improved grade of HDPE especially suitable for blowmolding these large containers.

This grade is designed for blowmolding of tight head drums with a capacity of 25-220 litres. Characteristic of the material are its very high impact resistance and rigidity, plus ease of processing and resistance to stress cracks and chemicals, says Sabic. Most significantly, this material delivers improved melt flow for higher productivity and reduced energy usage. It is offered in a granular form≈a departure from traditional powders≈and, reports Sabic, this change of form helps prevent waste, increase machine efficiency, and permits safer product handling.

Mauser (Bruhl, Germany) has annual revenue of about ┬1 billion, with 4000 employees and facilities around the globe. Its plastics division is the company's largest but it also makes and distributes metal and paperboard drums and industrial containers. The bulk of the plastics divisions' processing facilities are in Europe though it also has ones in Brazil, the U.S. and Thailand.

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(PRW) -- Rhodia Polyamide Materials continues to be affected by a severe disruption of raw materials procurement due to navigation limitations following on from an accident involving a barge on the Rhine, which occurred on 13 January.

This, combined with a supply shortage following an equipment breakdown on the ADN production facility in Chalampe (France), has forced Rhodia to declare a force majeure on its HMDA and downstream products. Resumption of normal polyamide production is expected by the beginning of March.

The overall impact on the Group's EBITDA is estimated at around ┬25m. This will be for the most part recorded in the current quarter. Rhodia is investigating all possible alternatives to mitigate the impact caused to its customers.

MRC