Additives plant opens

November 30, 1999 - The new Elf Atochem additives plant at Vlissingen in the Netherlands has been opened. The plant increases the company's capacity for impact modifiers and processing aids by 30,000 tonnes, reducing imports from Japan and the USA.

EPDM price rise

November 30, 1999 - DSM elastomers is increasing the price of its Keltan EPDM by Euro 0·08 - Euro 0·10/kilogram from the beginning of next year.

New MD for Battenfeld UK

November 26, 1999 - Robert Sayers, finance director of Battenfeld Injection Moulding Technology UK, becomes managing director on December 1, replacing Peter Richardson who becomes a consultant to the company. Sales director Mike Everett is also appointed to the board.

BASF extends Brazilian compounding

November 26, 1999 - BASF is expanding its Latin American presence with an expansion of its compounding agreement with Macroplast of Brazil. At the moment Macroplast compounds nylons based on BASF materials. It is to increase its capacity and next year will expand from glass fibre reinforced black Ultramid to add compounds based on other BASF engineering plastics.

AES/LG TPE/TPV agreement

November 26, 1999 - Advanced Elastomer Systems and LG Chemical are to co-operate in the development of new products based on AES's Santoprene thermoplastic elastomer. The two companies have agreed a three-part marketing/manufacturing deal. LG Chemical becomes distributor of AES thermoplastic vulcanisates in Korea and elsewhere in Asia/Pacific outside Japan, and will be able to compound hard grades of Santoprene TPE to sell them under the Santoprene name. The manufacturing aspect of the agreement is for LG to compound new TPVs based on AES products and sell them in Asia/Pacific, with AES selling them in the rest of the world.

Soft PVC toy ban deferred

November 25, 1999 - The European Commission has put on hold its decision to ban phthalate-plasticised PVC toys intended to be sucked and chewed by young children. Members of the General Product Safety Emergencies Committee discussing the ban decided to suspend their meeting after Toy Industries of Europe - the European toy manufacturers' association - offered a voluntary ban, and some members of the EU's Scientific Committee for Toxicity, Ecotoxicity and Environment (CSTEE) wrote to the Commission disagreeing with the interpretation of their findings.
     The emergency committee will meet again in around a week's time, but has made clear that there is widespread agreement among member states that these toys should be withdrawn.
     The European Council for Plasticisers & Intermediates welcomed the delay, which it called 'a very sensible move and a step in the right direction', and said that the phthalates industry would continue to work with the CSTEE and Dutch and British governments to develop a test method to measure migration.
     Greenpeace accused the EU of 'toying with children's health' in the run up to Christmas and announced plans for Toxic Toy Patrols to check shops for toys it considered dangerous. It commented on the inadequacy of a 'half baked proposal from European toy manufacturers' when 'most of the toys come from China', and pointed out that the interpretation of the CSTEE's findings disputed by some of its members could have been clarified last year had the CSTEE not ducked the question of whether there was a serious and immediate risk by batting it back to the Commission to clarify definitions.

Britton Group restructures

November 23, 1999 - The Britton Group has restructured its three operating groups, Britton Print and Conversion, Britton Film and Britton Security, which cover the 11 companies in the group, into four strategic business units aligned along the markets they serve. They are Britton Consumer, based at Louth; Britton Security, Mailing & Retail at Hartlepool; Britton Technical & Industrial at Winsford; and Britton Merchant & Distribution, operating from Milton Keynes.
     The new structure is part of the group's Vision 2001 initiative designed to grow the group into a £500 million European-based business. There are plans to expand in both existing and new product areas.
     The Britton Group became independent early last year when it was bought back by its management from ACX Technologies of the USA, and subsequently bought Merlin Flexible Packaging.

DSM to sell its resin compounds business

November 23, 1999 - DSM is to sell its resin compounds business - DSM Compounds - as part of a strategy to focus on the core business of its Industrial Resins & Compounds group, that of structural unsaturated polyester resins. DSM has a joint venture with BASF in this area - DSM-BASF Structural Resins - which sells resins to the compounding industry.
     DSM Compounds is being sold to Menzolit-Fibron, a subsidiary of Dynamit Nobel Kunststoff. DSM Compounds has a plant in the UK at Eastwood, and others in Italy, Spain, Germany and France, with a total workforce of 175. DSM says there will be no direct consequences for the employment situation.

BASF plans masterbatch sell off

November 22, 1999 - As part of the reorganisation of its colorant activities BASF is planning to sell its masterbatch business. It has already agreed to incorporate its textile dye business into the Bayer/Hoechst DyStar operation.

LNP enters South America

November 22, 1999 - Specialist engineering compounder LNP has moved into South America with the takeover of MIXCIM Indústria e Comércio of Sao Carlos, Brazil. The company, which will be renamed LNP-MIXCIM Engineering Plastics, is the fifth to be bought by Kawasaki LNP or one of the LNP units in recent years. LNP-MIXCIM will make LNP compounds for sale in South America, and some of MIXCIM's own products will be added to the LNP range.

Labotek bought out

November 22, 1999 - Danish ancillary equipment manufacturer Labotek has been bought by Danish investment company IKI Invest. IKI's owner Peter Jessen Jürgensen has taken over as managing director of Labotek from Jan Fussing, who now joins the board of Labotek.

Composites from soya?

November 22, 1999 - The Composite Polymers division of Ashland Specialty Chemical Company and Cara Plastics are jointly to research the use of polymers derived from soya as composites resins. If successful, the research could yield composites made from renewable resources.

Outside-in winding process for composites

November 22, 1999 - A centrifugal winding process for fibre-reinforced composites is under development at TWI - The Welding Institute. Fibres or fabrics are drawn into the rotating mould by centrifugal force and their placement is controlled by the fabric feeding system.
     TWI says there are advantages from building cylindrical products from the outside in - rather than from the inside out as with conventional mandrel based processes. Drive belts could be wound with reinforced teeth, and as the rotation dynamically balances the product, TWI says the process could be used to build the carcasses of high performance car tyres. Immediate applications are expected in drive belts and composite tubes.

PTA trial plant starts as SABIC outlines polymer escalation

November 22, 1999 - Trial production of purified terephthalic acid and aromatics has started at the SABIC Ibn Rushd plant at Yanbu Industrial City in Saudi Arabia. The design capacity of the plant is 350,000 tonnes of PTA a year, of which around 150,000 tonnes will be used to produce polyester.
     ¤ SABIC's position as a polymer exporter was underlined in a recent speech by the president of its polymers group Fahad Al-Sheaibi. He said that Saudi Arabian plastics processors now numbered around 450 with an annual consumption of more than 700,000 tonnes. SABIC's petrochemicals output will reach 35 million tonnes next year - 40 per cent more than in 1998 - and during 2000 SABIC was planning to bring on stream 2 million tonnes of polyolefin capacity, nearly doubling its world market share.

Victrex and Laporte integrate supply and demand

November 22, 1999 - Laporte and Victrex have agreed an interdependent supply deal which ensures output and supply of key raw materials for Victrex's PEEK polyarylketone. The two companies have also set up a 50:50 joint venture to supply BDF, the key raw material for PEEK.
     At present Laporte produces DFDPM at Rotherham and converts it to BDF at Seal Sands for supply to Victrex. Now Laporte has sold its DFDPM manufacturing facility to Victrex for £20 million. Victrex has entered a minimum seven-year agreement to buy fluorobic acid from Laporte to make DFDPM and will sell the DFDPM to the new joint venture, which will have it converted to BDF at Laporte's fine organics plant at Seal Sands for sale to Victrex.

BASF to increase polyetherol output

November 17, 1999 - Following Bayer's announcement yesterday that it is to buy Lyondell's polyol business and confirmation that it is likely to join Lyondell in a butanediol partnership in the Netherlands, BASF has announced plans to increase production of polyetherols at Antwerp in Belgium by 70,000 tonnes a year. This will push its European capacity up to 215,000 tonnes.
     The Antwerp plant is supplied with propylene oxide from Moerdijk in the Netherlands, where the BASF/Shell joint venture BASELL started up a new plant for propylene oxide a few weeks ago.

Bayer to buy Lyondell's polyol business

November 16, 1999 - Bayer is buying Lyondell Chemical Company's worldwide polyols business which, alongside its 25 per cent market share in isocyanates, will make it one of the biggest suppliers of polyurethane systems. Lyondell, the world's biggest supplier of propylene oxide since its takeover of ARCO Chemical and second biggest supplier of polyols and TDI (which is not being sold) acquires strong links with a major customer for PO. To further strengthen these links Bayer is buying into Lyondell's PO operation.
     The $2·4 billion raised by Lyondell through this sale will go towards paying off the cost of buying ARCO.
     In this deal Bayer acquires 700,000 tonnes of polyol capacity at plants in the USA, Belgium and France and in majority shares in operations in Taiwan and Indonesia. It is also expected to enter a joint venture with Lyondell to build a propylene oxide/styrene monomer plant in Amsterdam. This is part of a complex announced by ARCO in 1998, then shelved when ARCO was bought by Lyondell. Lyondell is to go ahead with the BDO plant, and Bayer has agreed to discuss the possibility of joint co-operation in the PO/styrene monomer plant.
     As well as the hardware of the polyol business Bayer is also buying Lyondell's technology which it expects to bring improved efficiency at its existing plants.

Immediate EC ban on PVC toys containing phthalates

November 10, 1999 - The sale of toys made from PVC softened with phthalate plasticisers which are intended to be put in the mouths of children under three is being banned immediately by the European Commission and toys on shop shelves are to be removed. Enforcement is expected to take around two weeks.
     The Commission says that the phthalates released when babies put these toys in their mouths 'pose a serious risk to child health'. Following today's ban on sale, the Commission is planning to amend the legislation on the marketing of dangerous substances to ban this particular use of phthalates permanently, although the procedure will take several years.
     The permanent ban will also require that toys for the under threes which are not intended to be put in the mouth should carry a warning label if they contain phthalates.
     Until recently the opinion of the EU Scientific Committee for Toxicity, Ecotoxicity and the Environment was that phthalate plasticisers can safely be used in soft PVC toys and childcare items provided that migration limits are adhered to. But today's statement from the European Commission 'Recent scientific evidence has shown that checks of phthalates release from such products in soft PVC are not a reliable way to ensure that babies do not absorb dangerous quantities of phthalates' reflects a change of view by the SCTEE on September 28 when it accepted that the laboratory test methods for checking the level of phthalate release from these toys were not suitable for control purposes. The much publicised tests developed in the Netherlands and the UK were deemed 'not suitable to distinguish safe toys from unsafe toys'.
     The Commission statement brought sharp reaction from the European Council for Plasticisers & Intermediates which called the ban 'totally unjustified' and warned that it could actually pose more of a risk to children, because it could force manufacturers to use plasticisers and other materials about which less was known - a concern also expressed by the SCTEE in its recent opinion.
     The ECPI referred to claims by Greenpeace that phthalates might cause toxic effects if children sucked or chewed on soft PVC toys for a long time. It said these claims were based on research into rats and mice given massive over-exposure. 'They ignore the most recent studies which show that these toxic mechanisms do not apply to primates and humans.'
     Since July 1998 eight member states of the EC - Austria, Denmark, Finland, France, Germany, Greece and Italy - have decided to restrict the use of phthalates in toys and childcare articles, and other countries have relied on a 'controlled use' approach by measuring phthalate release.
     The ECPI says that industry groups have already taken legal action against the French government's ban. 'This outrageous decision forces the chemical industry to seriously consider similar legal action aginst the Commission.'
     The ECPI web site carries both the press release from the European Commission and its own rebuttal.
     The reaction from Greenpeace was to welcome the ban - as far as it went. Commenting that the Commission had 'failed to ensure full protection of the health of babies' Greenpeace criticised the proposed warning label on toys not primarily intended to be put in the mouth. 'It does not take a rocket scientist to know that small children take all their toys into their mouth'.

All-PVC solution for coloured window profiles

November 10, 1999 - An all-PVC process for producing coloured profiles for outdoor use has been developed by the Benvic PVC compounds division of Solvay. Key to the new technology is the formulation of what Benvic refers to as 'cold formula' colours.
     The problem with applying a coloured surface to a PVC extrusion is that, particularly with dark colours, the surface heats up in the sunlight, causing a relaxation of internal stresses in the profile leading to shrinkage, and because it takes place on only one surface, eventual bending and breaking of the welded corners of window frames. Benvic's 'cold colours' reduce the surface rise in temperature.
     Of course, coloured profiles are in common use, but mainly in areas with low sun loads. Mass-coloured compounds have been used in the past for brown profiles, but coloured UV-resistant compounds have proved expensive and they have been largely replaced by coloured surface films, paint, or coextrusions with a coloured acrylic cap layer.
     Benvic's new Rainbow compounds reduce cost by coextruding a UV-resistant, low infrared absorbing coloured PVC surface on a low cost unstabilised PVC substrate. Skin thickness can be as little as 200 microns. This approach has the additional important benefit of using a single material, and so making the profiles recyclable.
     Weathering tests have been running in Europe and Brazil, and Benvic says they have shown the most popular colours to have good weather resistance, even in severe climates.

Chinese CD boxes to be subject to anti-dumping duty

November 10, 1999 - CD boxes imported to the European Community from China are to be subject to an import duty. The decision has been made after anti-dumping allegations by European Plastics Converters (EuPC), the organisation which represents more than 35,000 small and medium sized plastics processing companies in Europe.
     The allegations arose early last year when six European manufacturers of CD boxes - La Française des Platiques (France), CTP White Knight (UK), Neoplastik (Germany), EPM (Holland), Nepco (France) and Allaine (France) - and subsequently Carthuplas of Belgium contacted the EuPC with their dumping complaint. This led to the setting up of ECDM - European CD Boxes Manufacturers - which now has 15 members.
     In January this year EuPC took the complaint to the European Commission, alleging that the price difference between the normal value of CD boxes in China and their export value was 'significant' and therefore dumping was taking place. After seven months consideration the Commission agreed the allegation - just; member states voted eight in favour, six against and with one abstention.
     Import duties on CD boxes from the People's Republic of China will be imposed on December 3. The actual level of duty will be announced in the Commission's Official Journal on that date.

Montell in Korean PP joint venture

November 9, 1999 - Montell is joining with Daelim Industrial Co of Korea in a polypropylene joint venture company. Montell will acquire a 50 per cent interest in the polypropylene activities of Daelim, which is currently increasing its PP assets in a PP for PE swap with Hanwha. Daelim already has 500,000 tonnes of capacity in four Spheripol plants set up over the past seven years. The new company should be set up by the end of the year.

Now Röhm puts up PMMA and PC semi-finished products

November 9, 1999 - Röhm is following its methyl methacrylate price increase with an increase of 7 - 10 per cent in the price of PMMA and polycarbonate semi-finished products. The increase becomes effective in the New Year, and Röhm says that a further increase next year cannot be excluded.

Two-stage price increases from Dow

November 9, 1999 - Dow Europe has increased the price of its Magnum ABS and Tyril SAN by DM 0·20/kg, but this is insufficient to recover rising costs, and the company is planning to increase both prices by a further DM 0·20/kg on January 1.

Strategic exchange between SABIC and Mitsui

November 7, 1999 - Saudi Basic Industries Corporation (SABIC) is to co-operate with Mitsui Chemical Company of Japan in the supply of materials for polyester production, saving each company logistical and transportation costs.
     Mitsui will supply up to 30,000 tonnes annually of mono-ethylene glycol to SABIC for SABIC to sell to its Japanese customers, and SABIC will supply Mitsui with up to 40,000 tonnes of purified terephthalic acid for sale to Mitsui's customers in India and Pakistan.

Polycarbonate investment to give Bayer another foothold in China

November 4, 1999 - Bayer is to build a 100,000 tonnes plant for its Makrolon polycarbonate at the Shanghai Chemical Industry Park in Caojing, China as the first step in developing a polymer-producing complex with units for the production of isocyanate raw materials, chemicals, synthetic rubber and coating raw materials. Along with the polycarbonate plant, Bayer will build the site infrastructure and facilities for the production of precursor and compounding products.
     The total investment for the PC plant is estimated at $450 million, of which Bayer will provide 90 per cent and its joint venture partner Shanghai Chloralkali the remaining 10 per cent.
     The project - which is subject to approval by the Chinese government - will be completed in two stages. The first phase will be a plant with 50,000 tonnes capacity and immediately afterwards work will begin to double the capacity. Phase one is envisaged to be operational by 2003 and full capacity should be reached by 2005.
     So far Bayer has established 12 joint venture companies in The People's Republic of China, and sales there of about $580 million in 1998 make China Bayer's second largest market in Asia. To help raise the share of sales in Asia to about 25 per cent by 2010, Bayer has started a $4·5 billion investment programme in the region, under which about $2·5 billion will be invested in new plants.

BPF predicts the cost of the Climate Change Levy

November 4, 1999 - The proposed Climate Change Levy will cost the British plastics processing industry more than £60 million a year at face value on its electrical consumption, and an unknown amount from the negative impact it will have on companies' ability to compete.
     That is the nub of a letter from British Plastics Federation director general Peter Davis to the Chancellor of the Exchequer. Mr Davis said that the BPF welcomed the offer of larger rebates to energy intensive industries in exchange for negotiated agreements in reductions in energy usage, but questioned the fundamental aspect of whether such a tax on business was the right way to achieve environmental gain.
     The letter from Mr Davis to Gordon Brown continued: 'We find no comfort in the Treasury's claims that the National Insurance Contribution reductions and support for energy efficiency and renewable sources of energy will compensate for the levy.' He pointed out that many sections of the plastics industry were not labour intensive. 'Information from our member companies shows that at best they will recoup only one fifth of the taxation from NIC reduction.'
     The BPF has compiled projections across a range of processing operations which show that large processors would face net costs after NIC rebates of more than £500,000. Specifically, one technical moulder in Nottingham, which has a turnover of £4·5 million, could be expected to face a £27,000 levy. The NIC rebate would only be around £4,000, leaving a net cost to the company of £23,000.
     Mr Davis called for the government to scrap plans for the tax and its associated bureaucracy, and instead to rely on tough voluntary agreements. And he reminded the Chancellor that energy efficiency measures within the industry had reduced energy consumption from 4 per cent of turnover in 1989 to 3 per cent in 1999.

Macfarlane centralises film extrusion

November 4, 1999 - The Macfarlane Group is restructuring its film extrusion subsidiaries under the single banner of Macfarlane Plastics. Clansman Films in Preston and Alport Plastics in West Yorkshire have already merged, and they are to be joined in December by Dalewood Packaging, Orion Flexo, Saranne Packaging and Wicklow Custom Packaging.
     Macfarlane Plastics will have more than 500 employees, a projected turnover of £65 million, and an annual output of more than 70,000 tonnes of film. In addition to film extrusion the new company will offer injection moulding, bubblewrap, stretch film, pallet covers, bags and printed flexible packaging.
     The seven sites will be linked by computer enabling a single sales force and a single point of contact across the whole product range.
     Macfarlane is also looking for acquisitions to expand its range.

Marketing reshuffle at DuPont

November 4, 1999 - DuPont Engineering Polymers has made senior management changes within its European marketing structure. Timothy McCann, European marketing director for engineering polymers, has been appointed global business director for DuPont Fluoroproducts based in the USA. David Mays, marketing manager for Zytel nylon in northern Europe, moves to Geneva as his replacement. In turn, he is replaced at Hemel Hempstead by Pascal Rechatin, currently business manager for Delrin acetal in Europe and the Delrin job goes to Thierry Marin.

Elenac, Montell and Targor to merge

November 3, 1999 - BASF and Shell are planning to pull their polyethylene and polypropylene resources - some of which are already jointly owned by the two companies - into a single polyolefins entity which would be the world's largest producer of polypropylene and fourth largest in polyethylene with a turnover in excess of $6 billion.
     Talks are at 'an advanced stage' to combine Elenac, Montell and Targor in a 50:50 owned enterprise with its headquarters in the Netherlands, and an agreement could be ready for signature by the end of the year. As part of the process BASF will buy the 50 per cent of Targor owned by Celanese.
     In brief, the three components of the deal are:


	Montell	Targor	Elenac	Total
Owners	Royal Dutch/Shell Group	BASF & Celanese	BASF, Deutsche Shell & Shell Chemie	-
PP capacity (t)	4 million	1·4 million	-	5·4 million
PE capacity (t)	220,000	-	2 million	2·2million
Employees	5,400	1,600	3,100	10,100

Ex-Borealis compounding boss buys his old plant

November 3, 1999 - The German compounding plant at Norderstadt near Hamburg earmarked for closure by Borealis has been sold to RECO, which is owned by Rüdiger Ehrenberg, who was managing director at the Norderstadt plant until 1995. The 32,000 tonnes plant will operate as PolyComp.

Price increase for coex adhesive

November 3, 1999 - The cost of DuPont's Bynel coex film interlayer adhesive is being increased by Eur 0·10/kg in Europe from November 15.

New top structure at British Vita

November 2, 1999 - The new managing director of British Vita is to be David Campbell, currently the main board director responsible for cellular polymers. He takes office on January 1 when the present chief executive Jim Mercer becomes executive chairman, following the retirement of non-executive chairman R McGee.

Borealis figures reflect polyolefin pricing turmoil

November 2, 1999 - The underlying reason for the current round of stiff price increases in commodity plastics is plain in the latest financial results from Borealis, Europe's biggest and the world's fourth largest producer of polyolefin plastics. Borealis' feedstock prices in the third quarter of 1999 were 58 per cent higher than in the third quarter of the previous year. And despite an 8 per cent increase in sales volumes year on year, turnover in the third quarter was down substantially from Eur 1,063 million to Eur 712 million, showing that there is still a way to go to achieve realistic pricing.
     Borealis did, however, increase profits - a drop from Eur 64 million to Eur 63 million in operating profit was reversed to become an increase in pre-tax profit from Eur 45 million to Eur 51 million due to a substantial reduction in the company's fixed costs.
     Borealis is currently expanding capacity. A 610,000 tonnes ethylene cracker is due on line in Sweden this month and its joint venture with the Abu Dhabi National oil company is due to bring on line a 600,000 tonnes ethane-based cracker and two 225,000 tonnes polyethylene plants towards the end of 2001.

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