Materials price rises

September 23, 1999 - Price increases have been announced for Montell's polypropylene and Ticona's acetal.
     Montell's Moplen goes up by Euro 0·13/kg in Europe on October 1.
     Ticona's Hostaform goes up on October 25 by Euro 0·15/kg.

Britton's Plastics bought from receiver

September 23, 1999 - Britton's Plastics has been bought out of receivership by a Coventry-based investment company, the Fletchworth Group. Britton's was put up for sale in May this year when its parent company, die caster the Presbar Group, went into receivership.
     Fletchworth was set up earlier this year with the aim of becoming an industrial group, growing through strategic acquisitions. Before buying Britton's Fletchworth bought into a Nuneaton-based CNC manufacturing business.
     Britton's has 40 injection moulding machines from 22 to 1,600 tonnes on a 6 acre site in Warley, near Birmingham.

Two toolmakers taken over

September 22, 1999 - Two Midlands toolmakers have been taken over, one by a Canadian company.
     Orian Engineering of Mansfield Woodhouse in Nottingham has been bought by Wentworth Technologies of Canada, which says it is the world's number 1 independent manufacturer of blow moulds. It specialises in moulds for PET, extrusion and injection blow, thinwall containers and automotive parts and has eight subsidiaries in North America and Europe.
     Orian Engineering is to be renamed Wentworth Mould Ltd, UK Engineering Division.
     Arnold Plastic Moulding Tools of Birmingham has been sold by The Alumasc Group to Webgrove Holdings, which last year bought Showpla (UK) and announced an intention to buy more plastics related companies. Arnold, which has annual sales of £3 million and employs 60 people, is active in injection and compression tools for the automotive, electronic, electrical, healthcare and packaging industries.
     Webgrove has bought Arnold to add toolmaking to the package it can offer customers, and plans to invest further in the company with product design, prototyping and pre-production capability.

Polymer prices could threaten UK converters, warns PIFA

September 22, 1999 - The Packaging and Industrial Films Association has made another plea for reason in the face of spiralling polymer prices. It is cautioning polymer producers against pursuing pricing policies that could seriously threaten the competitive position of UK converters.
     PIFA warned in August that polyethylene could hit £600/tonne by October, and now says that these prices have already been implemented. 'We have seen prices rise by over 50 per cent in little more than three months, accompanied by the elimination of the differential between LDPE and linear polymer grades'. The association adds: 'This has not been matched by the sort of market buoyancy in the UK that we see in other EU countries, and a number of converters are finding it very difficult to meet buyers' expectations'.

CT Compounding taken over

September 22, 1999 - The CT Compounding range of co-rotating twin screw compounding extruders from Germany has been taken over by B & P Process Equipment & Systems of the USA. The machines will continue to be built in Germany, but the company has moved its office to Mühldorf am Inn and is now under the management of Dipl Ing Harold Possler. The machines are distributed in the UK by Uniplex Machinery Sales.

Ravenscroft increases capacity

September 22, 1999 - Ravenscroft Plastics has ordered a Cincinnati CM80L extruder and downstream equipment from Technoplast. This will increase capacity for custom extrusion and also enable Ravenscroft to add to its own range of standard products.

Solvay gets a slice of Chinese pipe business

September 22, 1999 - The Pipelife Group joint venture between Solvay of Belgium and Wienerberger of Austria is to take over the shareholding of the five companies in which Wienerberger participates in China. These companies make and sell plastic pipes and fittings.
     Pipelife is one of the major European producers of pipes and fittings with 3,200 employees and 31 plants in 23 countries.

Jones joins Silvergate as Guyett announces retirement

September 16, 1999 - John Guyett, founder and managing director of masterbatch manufacturer Silvergate Plastics, is to retire on December 31.
     Alan Jones has joined the company as general manager from Royalite Plastics, a Silvergate customer and sister company in British Vita.

BASF to buy control of POM production

September 14, 1999 - BASF is to take over total responsibility for the production of its Ultraform acetal. Ultraform is currently made by Ultraform GmbH, owned jointly by BASF and Degussa-Hüls, at plants in Ludwigshafen, Germany (32,000 tonnes) and Theodore, Alabama, USA (33,000 tonnes).
     Now BASF is planning to buy out Degussa-Hüls' share which, given approval by the relevant authorities, should take place in the next few weeks.

New director for ECVM

September 10, 1999 - The new director of the European Council of Vinyl Manufacturers is Jean-Pierre De Grève, who for the past 16 months has been ECVM's technical and environmental manager. He takes over from John R Svalander, who has been director for the past six years, and who continues as a consultant working on product and market related issues.

More from Elf Atochem for Resin Express

September 9, 1999 - The range of Elf Atochem materials sold by Resin Express is to be extended to include Pebax, Rilsan and Orgalloy.
     Pebax is a polyether block amide, which is on the border between thermoplastics and elastomers and has applications ranging from sports goods (notably shoe soles) to transmission belting and gears.
     Rilsan is nylon 11 and nylon 12, which are low moisture absorbing polyamides used in air brake tubing.
     And Orgalloy is a range of nylon/polyolefin alloys combining the mechanical strength, and thermal and chemical resistance of nylon with the dimensional stability, barrier properties and easy processing of polyolefins.

Pan Polymers takes on Korean styrenics

September 9, 1999 - Pan Polymers is now exclusive UK distributor for Starex SAN, ABS, PS and FR ABS, and Staroy PC/ABS made by Samsung Chiel of Korea. Samsung Chiel has more than 500,000 tonnes of styrenics capacity, and Pan will have access to the full range, with local UK stocks, colouring and technical back-up.

Senior appointment at Sherman

September 9, 1999 - Richard Senior has been promoted to technical director at adhesion promotion specialist Sherman treaters. He joined the company in May last year as engineering manager.

DuPont Dow to treble POE production

September 9, 1999 - DuPont Dow Elastomers is to treble production of its Engage polyolefin elastomers over the next three years. Output at the Freeport, Texas, USA plant will go up 30 per cent next year following recent expansions. Further expansion is planned at Freeport, and the company is to build a new 135,000 tonnes plant on the US Gulf Coast, starting in 2001. Final production capacity is targetted at 225,000 tonnes.

EPP for the dashboard of the future?

September 9, 1999 - Expanded polypropylene bead foam is being promoted as a material to make 'the next century instrument panel'. EPP manufacturer Fagerdala World Foams has joined with The Lear Corporation, which fabricates the instrument panels, to promote dashboards of Fawocel EPP.
     They have developed a tooling technique which gives a class A surface to foil-covered EPP. Instrument panels made this way are said to be 30 per cent lighter than conventional types; to have superior energy absorbing characteristics; to resist temperatures up to 130 degC; to be non-fogging; fully recyclable; and to have passed Volvo's non-squeak requirement, putting them in the S70/V70 and S80.

EVC reinvents PVC production

September 9, 1999 - EVC International is planning to make PVC in a way which reduces its dependence on ethylene and petrochemicals. The company is to build a full-scale plant to make VCM direct from ethane and chlorine, using technology which its Inovyl development business has been running on a pilot plant at Wilhelmshaven in Germany.
     The process by-passes the ethylene cracker and avoids the intermediate product ethylene dichloride. EVC says this effectively decouples the cost of producing VCM from the price of oil, ethylene, and thus polyethylene. Ethane is around 30 per cent of the cost of ethylene, for which it can be used as a feedstock.
     This is not the first attempt to go from ethane straight to VCM, but EVC says previous attempts by other companies could not be scaled up successfully to an industrial process because of poor conversions, catalyst instability and equipment corrosion at high reaction temperatures.
     The EVC process operates at a temperature below 500 degC, reducing corrosion and extending catalyst life, and uses a new catalyst which gives high yields with low by-products. The Wilhelmshaven plant, which has a capacity of 1,000 tonnes, has been running for more than a year and has achieved a greater than 90 per cent conversion rate to VCM, with an excellent catalyst lifetime and no signs yet of corrosion problems.

Perlos plans more expansion

September 9, 1999 - Finnish injection moulder and mouldmaker Perlos is to increase its capacity on Tyneside. Last year the company spent £1·3 million on a toolmaking plant at Houghton-le-Spring, Tyne & Wear, and is now to invest £4·2 million there on a manufacturing and sub-assembly plant. Last year's investment was subsidised with a £200,000 Regional Selective Assistance grant from the Department of Trade and Industry, and another £400,000 grant is to be made for the latest expansion.
     The new plant is due to open in January 2000 and will bring the company's workforce up from 160 to 250 - 120 employees are expected to relocate from Perlos' Washington plant which is to close. Perlos moulds for multi-national mobile phone and computer manufacturers, as well as locally for Black & Decker power tools and Bonas Machine Company. Its turnover rose last year from £7 million to £13·5 million.

Solvay buys US film producer

September 9, 1999 - Solvay Group company Alkor Draka Advanced Films - a subsidiary of Solvay America - has bought another US film manufacturer, Ellay. Alkor Draka makes and imports films, sheets, tubing and compounds for use in the medical, decorative laminate and PVC stationery markets. Ellay also makes films, sheets, laminates and compounds, and is a major supplier to the medical market as well as making laminates for the automotive, marine and consumer markets. Ellay's activities in the blood segment of the medical market complement those of Elka Draka which sells dialysis products made by Solvay Draka in the Netherlands. Ellay also brings additional technology into Alkor Draka, which is to move into the Ellay premises in Commerce, Los Angeles.

BIP expands compounding in the USA

September 9, 1999 - BIP Group's Chem Polymer subsidiary in Fort Myers, Florida, USA, has expanded its capacity in engineering thermoplastic compounds by more than 40 per cent with the opening of a 2,325 sq m factory extension. The extension houses a new 75 mm high torque twin screw extruder and a 9,000 kg blender, the plant's sixth compounding line.
     The plant's output is mainly compounds of nylon 6, nylon 66, acetal and PBT. 65 per cent is for automotive use and the company is experiencing growing demand from this sector.

PVC producers invest in feedstock recycling trial

September 9, 1999 - The European Council of Vinyl Manufacturers is funding a 2,000 tonnes/year plant to explore feedstock recycling of PVC. The project will cost Euro 3 million and will run for 2 - 3 years. Construction starts this year, with operation due to start mid-2000 and the first results are expected in the second quarter of 2001.
     The plant is to be built at Solvay's facility at Tavaux in France and will use technology from Linde in Germany. Feedstock recycling breaks the PVC down into its chemical constituents, which in the Linde process is done in a 'molten slag bath' containing mainly silicates. Reactions within the process decompose the PVC into hydrogen chloride and syngas - a mixture of hydrogen and carbon monoxide - which are recovered for re-use.
     The ECVM has 10 members, who account for virtually all PVC production in Western Europe. They are: Aiscondel, Cires, Elf Atochem, EVC International, LVM, Norsk Hydro, Rovin, Solvin, Vestolit and Vinnolit.

Solvay and Phillips join forces to cut the cost of meeting HDPE demand

September 5, 1999 - Solvay is planning yet another joint venture operation, this time with Phillips Petroleum in the USA. The two companies have agreed in principal to build two plants to make general purpose blow moulding grade HDPE. They will be owned equally by the two companies, and each company will sell its own share of production independently.
     The first plant to be built is expected to be the world's largest slurry loop reactor at 350,000 tonnes capacity. It will be sited at an existing facility of one of its parent companies and will be operational in 2002 using ethylene sourced mainly from Phillips' Sweeny, Texas site. The second plant would be built on a site owned by the other partner and is slated for a 2005 - 2007 start-up, depending on market demands.
     The rationale for the joint venture is that it enables each company to benefit from the economies of scale from production using a plant that otherwise neither would build.

¤ The announcement of the Solvay/Phillips joint venture quotes an annual growth rate of 5 per cent for HDPE. This is born out by a new study from Freedonia which says that world demand for the total polyethylene market will increase 5 per cent plus per year to reach 54 million tonnes in 2003, significantly outpacing inflation-adjusted growth in the global economy. PE will remain the largest volume thermoplastic, at roughly double the volume of both PP and PVC.
     Geographically the USA will remain the most important market for PE, and Freedonia says that Latin America - despite its recent financial instabilities - has favourable long term growth prospects. In Eastern Europe the Czech Republic, Hungary and Poland offer growth prospects, while the Russian market will remain weak.
     China is rapidly expanding its domestic capacity, but despite this Freedonia says it will remain the world's largest volume importer, giving some relief to its Asian neighbours whose own PE market contracted in 1997 - 98, emphasising the need for producers there to export. The Asian market itself is predicted to improve, particularly in South Korea, Thailand and Taiwan, although Japan's market is set to remain sluggish, offering the slowest gains of any major developed country.


World polyethylene demand ('000 metric tonnes)


				% annual growth
Market	1989	1998	2003	98/89	03/98
North America	8,903	14,130	17,420	5·3	4·3
Latin America	1,188	2,410	3,290	8·2	6·4
Western Europe	7,373	9,960	11,890	3·4	3·6
China	1,010	3,470	5,350	14·7	9·0
Japan	2,341	2,720	2,950	1·7	1·6
Other Asia/Pacific	3,048	5,935	8,750	7·7	8·1
Rest of World	3,177	3,105	3,950	-0·3	4·9
Total World	27,040	41,730	53,600	4·9	5·1
Source: Freedonia Group Inc

Rising prices

September 5, 1999 - Further price rises have been announced in polymer materials and additives.
     BASF has increased the price of its Polystyrol and Styropor (EPS) products by DM 0·20/kg.
     Degussa-Hüls is to increase the price of pigment blacks by between 4 and 9 per cent from October 1.

Growth in specialist film additives

September 5, 1999 - ECC International is increasing capacity for production of its FilmLink calcium carbonate products as part of a strategy of focussing on value-added high-growth areas.
     FilmLink is tailored to enable the production of breathable and other specialist film types and ECC has entered into supply agreements with polyolefin film manufacturers and plastics compounders to further develop films for new applications and markets.
     The new capacity expansion is at Lixhe in Belgium, where 40,000 tonnes of capacity has been added, with the potential to expand by a further 40,000 tonnes.

Plastics in cars - an update

September 5, 1999 - The Association of Plastics Manufacturers in Europe has updated the statistics on the use of plastics in European cars in a new publication, Plastics - a material of choice for the automotive industry. Details from the report include:
     ¤ in 1997 1·7 million tonnes of plastics were used by the automotive industry, representing 6 per cent of total plastics consumption.
     ¤ Over the past 20 years the use of plastics in automotive manufacturing has grown by 1,096,000 tonnes, or 114 per cent, representing an average increase of 30 kg per car from 70 to 100 kg.
     ¤ 100 kg of plastics in a car replace 200 - 300 kg of traditional materials. All other factors being equal, this represents a reduction in fuel consumption of 750 litres over a life span of 150,000 km. This can be further projected to represent a reduction in oil consumption of 12 million tonnes and CO₂ emission by 30 million tonnes per year in Western Europe.
     ¤ In recent years increased safety and comfort have led to a slight increase in the weight of an average car from 1,015 kg in 1990 to 1,132 kg in 1998. If plastics had not replaced traditional materials today's cars would have been at least 200 kg heavier.
     ¤ Applications, materials and weights of plastics used in an average car are:


Part	Main plastic types	Weight (kg)
Bumpers	PP, ABS, PC	10
Body (including body panels)	PP, PPE, UP	6
Exterior trim	ABS, PA, PBT, ASA, PP	4
Interior trim	PP, ABS, PET, POM, PVC	20
Seats	PUR, PP, PVC, ABS, PA	13
Upholstery	PVC, PUR, PP, PE	8
Dashboard	PP, ABS, PA, PC, PE	15
Under-bonnet components	PA, PP, PBT	9
Fuel systems	PE, POM, PA, PP	7
Other reservoirs	PP, PE, PA	1
Electrical components	PP, PE, PBT, PA, PVC	7
Lighting	PP, PC, ABS, PMMA, UP	5


     ¤ Plastics made up 9·3 per cent by weight of materials used in European Automobile production in 1998. The materials used, in descending order of weight, were:


Material	Percentage used
Sheet steel	41
Other steel	18
Plastics	9·3
Aluminium	8
Cast iron	6·4
Rubber	5·6
Adhesives/paints	3
Glass	2·9
Other metals (zinc, copper, magnesium, lead)	2
Miscellaneous	2
Textiles	0·9
Fluids	0·9


     ¤ Plastics represent 5·8 per cent of total automotive waste by weight. Eight per cent of 67,000 tonnes of automotive post-user plastics waste is currently recycled.

DuPont gets tough on Teflon

September 5, 1999 - DuPont has set up a licensing and quality assurance programme to protect its Teflon brand name. PTFE was discovered by Dr Roy Plunkett, then working for DuPont, in 1938 and the brand name Teflon was subsequently registered for it. The non-stick properties of PTFE have been applied in a host of product areas, and the name Teflon is tending towards the generic for things to which nothing else will stick - remember the Teflon president?
     So to protect its brand DuPont has set up a licensing system under which manufacturers pay a fee to use the name on their products for three or five years, during which time DuPont will audit their products to see they meet its marketing and quality criteria.

Boxmore buys Rexam Pharmaceutical

September 5, 1999 - Boxmore International has bought Rexam Pharmaceutical Packaging for £13·25 million. Boxmore is a leading supplier of pharmaceutical packaging in Europe, and the purchase of Rexam adds a business with three sites - Eastleigh in England, Limerick in Ireland and Brussels in Belgium - making printed cartons, leaflets and foils, which last year turned over £12·2 million. Boxmore's Healthcare Packaging division now has six operations in Britain, two in Ireland, two in Belgium and one in each of France and Germany.

'Breakthrough technology' in fire retardants

September 4, 1999 - A fire retardant treatment suitable for plastics, rubber and textiles and claimed to offer substantial benefits over alternative technologies is being promoted by an Isle of Man company, using technology originating in Russia.
     Advantages claimed are that Firestop is non-brominated, reducing toxic fumes by up to 80 per cent; is said to be up to 50 per cent cheaper in production terms than existing products; does not change the mechanical properties of polymers when used as an additive; and is compatible with all current processing procedures and equipment.
     The company promoting it, CFB plc, has set up a subsidiary, Isle Firestop, to offer non-exclusive licenses for the process, which is one of a number of technologies from Russia for which it has acquired rights. To remove the 'risk' of investing in Russian technology CFB says it has effectively removed Russia and all its problems from the equation. Intellectual property rights have been secured and protected under international law, and most of the senior scientists have been 'transplanted'. CFB says that all the key people behind Firestop now live and work for Isle Firestop in the Isle of Man.
     Firestop is currently being evaluated by various UK companies with interests in fire retardants, and the company is planning a series of open days to discuss the technology in London (September 27/28) and Birmingham (September 30). Invitations - +44(0)1624 825472.

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