Mannesmann Plastics Machinery for sale

November 29, 2000 - The entire Mannesmann Plastics Machinery business has been put up for sale. The move is part of a continuing restructuring plan at Mannesmann Demag Krauss-Maffei, which was the odd ball in the Siemens and Bosch joint bid to buy Atecs-Mannesmann earlier this year. In this takeover the various divisions of Atecs-Mannesmann were allocated to each of the takeover partners - not without some difficulties - but MDKM was earmarked for joint control by Bosch and Siemens. Siemens was already involved in some of the businesses through joint ventures, and in October bought the Demag Delaval turbine business, leaving the plastics machinery division as a wholly-owned MDKM operation - and unwanted by Siemens.
     MPM consists of six companies. They are:

Management rejig at ill-starred EVC

November 29, 2000 - The restructuring process planned by European Vinyls Corporation as it struggles to return to profitability has cost the jobs of two of its top directors. Chief executive officer and chairman Ettore dell'Isola and chief financial officer Nigel Taylor have resigned, and are being replaced - subject to shareholder approval - by Jacques Hurkmans (CEO and chairman) and Kenneth Tjon (CFO). Mr Hurkmans was until recently vice president and managing director of management consultant Arthur D Little International in the Netherlands, and Mr Tjon is a partner in Value Enhancement Partners, also in the Netherlands.
     EVC has also taken on a team of turnaround specialists to help implement the company's restructuring, and will present a restructuring programme to a special shareholders meeting on January 17.

Boost for cracker capacity

November 29, 2000 - De-bottlenecking plans for the ethylene cracker at Borealis' Porvoo, Finland site will increase output by 10 per cent to 310,000 tonnes and should help reduce emissions of volatile organic compounds by about 5 per cent. The work will be carried out during a routine maintenance shut down in May 2002.

Shake up in materials testing

November 29, 2000 - Takeovers and alliances have brought several testing equipment manufacturers together.
     Bohlin Instruments has bought most of the assets of Rosand Precision. It has taken over the rheometry, flow index and Vicat softening point testing equipment along with the Rosand brand name, and will continue to sell them under the Rosand name. The one Rosand line not bought by Bohlin is the impact testers, which remain with Rosand's ultimate parent Zwick.
     Non-destructive testing specialist Sonatest, which makes ultrasonic equipment, has plugged a gap in its product line by buying the X-ray testing equipment manufacturer Balteau X-ray of Belgium. Balteau had been operating independently since a management buy-out from the Schlumberger group in 1981, and will continue to operate from its Belgian plant as Balteau NDT.
     And also plugging a gap in the range, but in a less finite way, is Ametek Lloyd Instruments which has entered a technology co-operation with Si-Plan Electronics Research. Si-Plan makes servo-pneumatic and servo-hydraulic systems for fatigue testing from 2 - 500 kN. The co-operation gives Ametek Lloyd access to this technology, and in return gives Si-Plan more of a market presence.

Forecasting the noise from nylon rocker covers

November 29, 2000 - New acoustic specifications for vehicle engine rocker covers moulded in nylon are anticipated by Rhodia Engineering Plastics following its development of a laboratory prediction technique. The work was done in association with the PSA group, and Rhodia says it expects PSA and other manufacturers to refer to its new techniques in new specifications.
     Techniques for predicting vibrations have been around for some time, but Rhodia says that noise predictions have relied on simulations, or simply waiting for an engine to become available for testing. Its development was done with vibro-acoustic behaviour input from the National Institute of Applied Sciences engineering school in Lyons, France, and showed how a rocker cover is excited by two simultaneous inputs. One is mechanical, caused by the vibration of the engine, and the other is acoustic, arising from the noise of the engine. Rhodia tests these characteristics separately, and then combines them to form a noise level prediction. Trials showed that the predicted noise levels differed minimally from measured noise over the frequency range 500 - 5,000 Hz.
     Rhodia now anticipates the setting up of a database of the most common engine types to enable the noise output from a rocker cover to be established at an early point in its design. This will allow optimum geometries and nylon formulations to be determined.

New service for EMI/RFI shielding

November 29, 2000 - A new consultancy specialising in EMI/RFI shielding techniques has linked up with a plating company in the West Midlands.
     Applied Coating Technologies has been set up in Tipton, West Midlands to provide consultancy and product design, with spraying facilities for conductive, decorative or other technical coatings, and with a service for producing form-in-place shielding gaskets. It has linked up with Quality Plated Plastics of Birmingham, which has recently installed a high throughput electroless plating plant specifically for EMI/RFI shielding work.

MBI at composites company

November 29, 2000 - Composites manufacturer Crompton Plastics has been bought for £3 million by a management buy-in team of three led by Dr Scott Roberts. The company started with reinforced polyurethane centre boards and rudders for sailing dinghies and has diversified into other composites products including medical equipment, which now account for half its turnover. The sale was brought about by the impending retirement of Crompton's owners Brian Hogan and Bill Pyatt.

Rubber extruder agency agreement

November 29, 2000 - Rubber extruders, curing systems and complete extrusion lines made by Colmec of Italy are now available in the UK through Brian Ward (Manchester). Included in the catalogue is a patented screw preformer which makes continuous pre-formed blanks of various weights and lengths from cold strip or warm feed strip at between 50 and 4,000 kg/hr. Brian Ward sells a range of equipment and materials for rubber processing, and has just gone on-line at www.brian-ward.co.uk.

Thanks but no thanks for an Interplas alternative

November 23, 2000 - The 'official thumbs up' predicted by Emap Maclaren from the Polymer Machinery Manufacturers and Distributors Association for its Plastics+ alternative to the Interplas exhibition turned out to be a definite thumbs down when the question was actually put to the association.
     Emap Maclaren announced its new exhibition earlier this month as an alternative to Interplas to satisfy industry demands. But when the members of the PMMDA - who between them took 65 per cent of the exhibition space at the 1999 event - voted on which exhibition to support at their annual general meeting they elected to stay with Interplas. New PMMDA chairman Brian Thorne put the decision succinctly when he thanked the Emap team for presenting the industry with an alternative and looked forward to working with Reed Exhibition Companies and other co-sponsors in changing the fortunes of Interplas.
     UPDATE November 24, 2000 - Following the PMMDA's rejection Emap has announced in this morning's Plastics & Rubber Weekly that its plans for an exhibition in 2002 have been shelved. While the words egg and face swing into juxtaposition, Emap is too big an organisation for this to have been just a silly mistake. Its polymer publishing operations are supported by other revenue streams, mainly conferences, and a major exhibition would make the business worth more than the sum of its parts. Having recently cut back on its internet investments, Emap may seek to reassure shareholders with increased activity in more traditional sectors. The adage 'If you can't beat it, buy it' springs to mind.

Harder push for acrylic DVDs

November 23, 2000 - Atoglas has added strength to its mission to switch optical discs from polycarbonate to acrylic by starting up an acrylic DVD line at its Cerdato R & D centre near Paris, France.
     The company says that all DVD basic specifications can be met with its Oroglas/Plexiglas (depending which side of the Atlantic you are on) VOD-100 material, and the initial task of the new development line will be to fine tune DVD-9 formats. After that it will work on next-generation DVD formats.
     The new lab line includes a Singulus Spaceline system with two Netstal Discjet moulding machines equipped with Axxicon moulds. They are installed in a class 10,000 clean room alongside existing Datarius and Digital Instrument AFM control devices for determining physical and electrical properties.
 Plexiglas acrylic is already in use for DVDs in Germany and is now being used by Infodisc Technology of Taiwan, which is using Plexiglas DQ 501 supplied by Röhm to mould both DVD5 and DVD9 formats.

ATOFINA gets Exxpol rights

November 23, 2000 - ATOFINA and Univation Technologies have agreed cross-licensing of patents involving gas-phase and slurry production of metallocene polyethylene. As part of the deal ATOFINA is now able to use Univation's Exxpol metallocene technology on existing and future Unipol PE plants to make linear low and high density PE using Exxpol metallocene catalysts.

Petkim selects DSM technology for new PE plant

November 23, 2000 - Turkish state-owned petrochemicals company Petkim is to use DSM's Clean Tubular Reactor technology to build a 120,000 tonnes LDPE plant at its Aliaga petrochemicals facility. The plant, due on stream in 2004, will take Petkim's LDPE capacity over 300,000 tonnes.

New identities for blow moulders

November 23, 2000 - Two household names in blow moulding are no more. BlowMocan and Plysu, both part of the South African Nampak packaging group - BlowMocan since 1994 and Plysu since 1999 - are now operating under the Nampak banner. Nampak's European operations span 23 factories in the UK, Belgium, Holland, France and Spain, employing around 2,500 people and with sales approaching Eur 350 million.

BASF to expand Korean isocyanates

November 23, 2000 - BASF is taking a minority stake in a Korean chemicals company as part of an expansion of isocyanate production in the country. It will buy 14·5 million shares in Hanwha Chemical Corporation for $106,575,000, giving BASF a 14·2 per cent stake in Hanwha. Hanwha will supply BASF with chlorine in return for hydrogen chloride from the isocyanate production.
     The isocyanate expansion will be at BASF's Yosu site, where it is to open a 140,000 tonnes facility for TDI in 2003 and double its existing 80,000 tonnes MDI capacity by 2004.

BASF in a hurry to develop new materials

November 23, 2000 - BASF has added to its materials development facilities with the purchase of a minority stake in Chemspeed of Switzerland, which is involved in combinatorial materials research. This is a high speed technique in which materials are synthesised and tested very quickly in parallel operations, enabling combined structures with further potential to be identified and then tested and optimised using more conventional technologies.
     Earlier this year Ciba also entered the CMR arena to develop improved additives through a research co-operation with Symyx Technologies of the USA.

Victor plant goes in PolyOne rationalisation

November 23, 2000 - PolyOne is closing its Victor International Plastics colour compounds plant at Coventry and moving the operation to its Manchester plant where it makes colour masterbatch. The move should be completed by the end of the year and the Manchester plant will eventually be renamed PolyOne Compounds & Colours UK. The Engineered Materials business, which sells compounds made in Germany, Spain and Italy, will remain in the Coventry area in new offices.
      Bernard Baert, general manager of the PolyOne Color business in Europe, is to become vice president of international operations, taking over from Garth Henry who retires at the end of January.

More specialist materials from DuPont

November 23, 2000 - DuPont has extended its portfolio of high performance materials using a melt-processable polyimide and, through DuPont Dow Elastomers, with easier-to-process fluoroelastomers.
     DuPont Engineering Polymers makes polyimide shapes and parts from sintered polyimide under the Vespel brand. Early this year it introduced in the USA a new range of shapes and parts made from a melt-processable polyimide supplied by Mitsui Chemicals. Now these shapes, known as Vespel TP, have become available in Europe.
     DuPont says that parts injection moulded from TPI offer improved temperature, chemical and wear resistance over existing Vespel shapes.
     The new Viton fluoroelastomers from DuPont Dow have a bisphenol curing system which the company says overcomes the scorch, mould fouling and demoulding problems which can be associated with peroxide-cured materials. These new VTX9136 and VTX9148 grades have physical properties similar to those of Viton GFLT and GLT but with a low temperature flexibility (TR-10) 2 - 3 degC higher. Tests on VTX9136 showed a low temperature sealing integrity down to -40 degC with fluids resistance similar to that of Viton GLT, while VTX9138 showed a fluids resistance comparable with Viton GFLT.

Maplan expands

November 23, 2000 - To meet high levels of sales for its rubber injection moulding machines Maplan is enlarging its Ternitz, Austria plant. A 600 m² extension is being added for the technical department to make room for further development of the company's modular machine range.

Spilsbury moves up at Cookson

November 23, 2000 - New managing director of Cookson Plastic Moulding's European Material Handling Division is David Spilsbury. For the past 18 months he has been European sales manager.

Weima moves

November 23, 2000 - Shredder manufacturer Weima has moved its UK office to 2 Melbourne Court, Corby Gate Business Park, Priors Haw Road, Corby, Northants NN17 5JG. Telephone 01536 262156, fax 01536 406675.

Dynisco split and sold

November 21, 2000 - Four of the five Dynisco businesses have been sold by industrial group Berwind Industries to Madison Capital Partners. The four operations involved are three US manufacturing units Dynisco Instruments (transducers and instrumentation), Dynisco Extrusion (gear pumps and screen changers) and Dynisco Polymer Test (rheological and other materials testing equipment), and Dynisco Measurement and Control Europe, based in Germany and responsible for sales and manufacturing in Europe. Dynisco's hot runner business is not included in the sale, and is being retained by Berwind as an independent operating entity.
     Madison Capital is the company which bought some of the John Brown plastics machinery businesses in 1998 and famously failed last year to buy the Battenfeld injection moulding machinery business.

Dow puts up polystyrene price

November 21, 2000 - Dow Chemical is increasing the price of polystyrene in Europe by DM 0·20/kg on December 1.

Integral takes over Tetraform manufacture

November 21, 2000 - Integral Plastics Group has bought Pulley Brothers' Tetraform process equipment from the administrative receivers. Tetraform is a combined vacuum forming/RIM technology which makes rigid panels with a good cosmetic appearance. The equipment is being moved to Integral's Integral Composites subsidiary which makes composites components for trucks, construction equipment and mass transit vehicles. The company is opening a new plant in the Brirmingham area, scheduled to become operational in January.

Plasfeed on the move

November 21, 2000 - Hot runner specialist Plasfeed is moving to bigger premises on December 1. The new plant is at Unit 17, Surrenden Manor, Old Surrenden Manor Road, Bethersden, Ashford, Kent TN26 3DL (tel: 01233 822400, fax 01233 822401).

Uponor wins major UK water pipe contract

November 20, 2000 - Following its success with the British Gas Transco business Uponor (UK) has won a major contract to supply polyethylene pipes and fittings to one of the world's largest water and waste water companies. The contract, with Thames Water Utilities in London, is worth £25 - 30 million over the next 3 - 5 years.
     Last year Uponor signed a deal with Severn Trent Water for a 5 - 7 year supply contract worth £35 - 50 million.

Release agent companies to combine

November 20, 2000 - Two German suppliers of polyurethane release agents are to combine their businesses. On January 1 Goldschmidt Polyurethane Additives' release agents business will merge with RATEC to become Gorapur, owned 51 per cent by Goldschmidt and 49 per cent by RATEC.
     The Goldschmidt Polyurethane Additives business is presently part of SKW Trostberg's Performance Chemicals division, and with the impending merger of SKW with Degussa-Hüls to become a reborn Degussa, will become part of the Degussa oligomers/silicones business unit.

EPDM and melamine investments by DSM

November 16, 2000 - DSM is to spend nearly Eur 200 million increasing EPDM and melamine production at Geleen in the Netherlands.
     The Eur 100 million investment in Keltan EPDM will bring a new 80,000 tonnes plant on line by the second half of 2002. This will be integrated with the two existing plants on the site currently producing 70,000 tonnes and will push DSM's worldwide capacity up to 295,000 tonnes.
     DSM is also undergoing de-bottlenecking at its other plants and is studying the potential of building a large scale plant in the Far East. The company already reckons to be the world's biggest EPDM producer with a market share of more than 20 per cent.
     The Eur 90 million to be spent on a new melamine plant at Geleen will add 30,000 tonnes to the existing 90,000 and will also expand urea production - urea is a raw material for melamine. DSM is also involved in joint ventures in the USA and Indonesia with a further 120,000 tonnes capacity.
     The new Geleen plant will use the high pressure shortened liquid phase technology derived from the process DSM bought from MCI in 1997. Start-up is scheduled towards the end of 2002.

PolyOne buys another British fabric coater

November 16, 2000 - PolyOne Corporation has bought a British fabric-coating business. It has taken over Newton Coated Fabrics and will integrate it with Plasticotta, a fabric coating business within its Specialty Resins and Formulators Group. Both companies are in the Greater Manchester area and will continue to operate on their own sites using complementary production processes. There is little overlap in the operations of the two companies, and combined sales are expected to be around £4·7 million.

BASF in polystyrene ventures in India and Russia

November 16, 2000 - BASF is broadening its worldwide presence in polystyrene with joint ventures in India and Russia. In India it is to take a majority stake in a joint venture with Chatterjee Group of New York, USA and in Russia it is entering a 50:50 joint venture with the largest petrochemicals company in the Russian Federation, OAO Nishnekamskneftechim (NKNC).
     Chatterjee brings into the Indian partnership Pushpa Polymers of Gujurat which has capacity for 60,000 tonnes of GP/HIPS. BASF will run Pushpa Polymers to supply what is seen as a more than 10 per cent annual growth market for polystyrene in India.
     In Russia the proposed joint venture will invest Eur 100 million in building a 40,000 tonnes EPS plant to start up in 2003, and a 120,000 tonnes PS plant to come on stream a year later. Output is destined primarily for the Russian Federation.
     The deal with NKNC is part of a wider co-operation in a variety of chemicals products started in April 1999, which has also seen the setting up of the Elastokam joint venture in polyurethane systems and basic materials between NKNC and BASF subsidiary Elastogran.
      Upstream of polystyrene BASF and Shell have had to rename their joint venture operations in styrene monomer/propylene oxide at Moerdijk in the Netherlands and Seraya in Singapore. These operations were originally called Basell, but as this is the name chosen for the BASF/Shell polyolefins business, the SM/PO joint ventures are being retitled Ellba.

Chevron Phillips opens Chinese PS plant

November 16, 2000 - A 100,000 tonnes polystyrene plant has been opened in Jiangsu province in China by Chevron Phillips. The plant has cost $92 million and the company is looking towards a further investment of $58 million, taking capacity up to 300,000 tonnes.

Ciba to sell off masterbatch

November 16, 2000 - Ciba Specialty Chemicals is planning to sell its masterbatch businesses to concentrate on its core activities. It makes colour and additive masterbatch in six countries and sold more than SFr 100 million last year.
     Letters of intent have been signed with Megides AME, a Dutch investment company with interest in masterbatch, compounds and additive concentrates to buy the plants in France, Italy, the Netherlands, Australia and New Zealand, and with Techmer PM of the USA, which is also active in masterbatch, for the Saudi Arabian and Malaysian businesses.

AES links with Italian compounder

November 16, 2000 - Advanced Elastomer Systems is to join with Italian compounder Applicazioni Plastiche Industriali in the development of new TPE compounds based on AES's thermoplastic vulcanisates. The alliance gives API development backing for new TPV compounds and extends AES's compounding capabilities for regional markets.

LCP for barrier packaging

November 7, 2000 - Ticona has modified its Vectra liquid crystal polymer to produce a variant which is suitable for barrier layers in food and medical packaging. The new Vectran material has been developed specifically to be co-processable with conventional packaging polymers in standard processes.
     LCP is notable for its stiffness, which does not lie easily with flexible packaging. So Ticona has modified the monomer composition to increase flexibility and also to increase viscosity for applications such as blown film. It has also been necessary to reduce melt point.
     Vectran can be used as a coextrusion layer with polyolefins, polyesters, nylon and other plastics in cast or blown film, and can be processed on existing extrusion and laminating equipment at temperatures between 220 degC and 350 degC. Sheet incorporating Vectran can be thermoformed conventionally.
     LCP has a high oxygen and water vapour barrier at a layer thickness as low as 2 - 5 microns. Vectran's water vapour barrier is said to exceed that of many fluoropolymers, and its oxygen barrier does not decrease with increased humidity, as does that of EVOH. There are caveats to this in that for the blown film grades Ticona has had to trade off some barrier performance for processability.
     Cast film properties remain those of its Vectra counterpart, and in particular its temperature resistance enables Vectran to retain its barrier properties after retorting at 120 degC or more. Ticona says Vectran is virtually unaffected by sterilisation methods and exposure to microwaves. It also remains strong at cryogenic temperatures and withstands aggressive chemicals, including many that can degrade EVOH and PVDC.
     The initial target for Vectran was as a competitor to EVOH: a Vectran layer would do the same job at the same price as an EVOH barrier at around 20 per cent of the thickness. But Ticona has moved the emphasis to applications for which EVOH was not totally suitable, particularly retortable packaging.
     One potential benefit seen for Vectran in packaging film is in simplifying web structures, so that a complete film may be made by coextrusion instead of needing a separate aluminium foil lamination process.
     Other than packaging, Ticona sees applications for Vectran as a barrier layer in engineering products. Vehicle fuel tanks and containers for aggressive liquids are two such, while there is other potential in electrical/electronic, telecommunications and data communications.

New export boom for German machinery

November 7, 2000 - The resurgence in the fortunes of Germany's plastics and rubber machinery companies predicted after the fall in production in 1999 has brought a 15 per cent increase in export deliveries in the first half of this year.
     Sales to Europe, Africa, Asia and North America were all up; only sales to Latin America were down (by 12 per cent) but this was on a relatively small base figure - for a similar reason sales to Africa leapt 31 per cent.
     Sales to Europe increased 21 per cent, but while EU countries bought more German machines, the real growth was in Central and Eastern Europe where sales were up 30 per cent, principally in the Czech Republic, Poland, Russia and Hungary.
     The USA remains Germany's biggest single national customer buying Eur 243 million worth of equipment in the first half. France, the second largest importing country, bought half as much.
     The Asian market increased 9 per cent with sales to Japan, South Korea and Taiwan increasing particularly strongly, and signs of a turn round in India following its investment backlog.
     Future growth in export deliveries was promised by orders received between January and August, which were up 15 per cent, and the plastics and rubber machinery manufacturers association the VDMA, which collates the figures, is predicting growth of up to 5 per cent in production and exports for the year of K2001.

Elastogran buys into Turkish PU systems

November 7, 2000 - Elastogran has bought a Turkish polyurethane systems company. It has taken over ISPOL of Pendik, near Istanbul, and will rename it Elastogran Poliüretan Sanayi ve Ticaret. Until this point Elastogran had only been supplying PU products to Turkey as imports.

Colloids to move in with Yardley

November 7, 2000 - Masterbatch producer Colloids is to move in with sister company Yardley Plastics.
     Earlier this year Colloids was taken over by Kafrit International in concert with its existing management and announced plans to close its Widnes plant and move to its site at Runcorn.
     Now the company is to abandon both Widnes and Runcorn and to move its entire operation to the Yardley Plastics site at Knowsley. One of the reasons given for the move will be the ability to expand its businesses in black, white, colour and additive masterbatches.
     Yardley Plastics is a subsidiary of Ravago of Luxembourg which has a joint operation with Kafrit of Israel in Kafrit International, which is part owner of Colloids. £4 million has been invested in new manufacturing facilities at Runcorn over the past 18 months. With the arrival of Colloids there will be a further £2 million investment over the next year which will expand capacity by 50 per cent with the addition of another 2,250 m². In addition to increasing production there will be an expansion in the company's analytical and R & D facilities.
     Work has already started on extending the Knowsley site, and relocation is expected to be complete by the end of March next year.

Polycarbonate anyone?

November 7, 2000 - Having trouble getting hold of polycarbonate? Cotswold Compounds says it is bucking the trend and can deliver its Sylex colour compounds in 15 working days instead of up to 34 weeks which it says is being quoted by some larger suppliers.

Wittmann closes the loop

November 7, 2000 - Complete moulding cell ancillary integration is now offered by Wittmann following the purchase of the French CMB granulator range and Canadian Nucon material handling equipment.
     Wittmann is now offering a 'one stop package' for removing sprues from a moulding machine, passing them to a granulator, and feeding the regrind back through a proportioning valve into the production cycle.

Gunfight at the UK corral

November 3, 2000 - Britain's Interplas exhibition, to be held next in 2002, is being attacked head-on by a new exhibition scheduled to take place less than six months earlier. The publisher of the magazines which have promoted Interplas as sponsors for many years has jumped ship, and is proposing 'a new exhibition to satisfy industry demands for an alternative to Interplas'.
     The company is Emap Maclaren, which publishes Plastics & Rubber Weekly and other magazines for overseas polymer markets, and says it is the largest exhibition organiser in the UK (a claim disputed by Interplas organiser Reed Exhibition Companies).
     Managing director Jim Hay, who through his company's previous sponsorship of Interplas has been involved in the detailed planning of previous Interplas exhibitions, says in today's Plastics & Rubber Weekly 'There is an opinion from all sectors of the industry, expressing their dissatisfaction with Interplas.' The newspaper quotes several of its advertisers as supporting the Emap move, largely with the tenor of wanting a fresh approach.
     Interplas is certainly not a fresh exhibition. It has been held regularly since the early days of the plastics industry as we know it, and was at one time one of the big four European exhibitions taking place alternately in Britain, France, Germany and Italy. As the K fair in Germany has risen to become 'the' European exhibition, the other three have become more national than international, but still retain the patronage of Euromap, the European plastics machinery organisation set up, in part, to prevent the proliferation of trade fairs and consequent drain on the resources of exhibiting companies. Euromap does not extend patronage to purely domestic shows, such as the Fakuma exhibition in Germany, and has not been approached to give patronage to Emap's new Plastics+ exhibition.
     Another organisation also playing a role in controlling trade fairs is the Polymer Machinery Manufacturers & Distributors Association (formerly the Plastics Machinery Distributors Association) which is another long-time sponsor of Interplas. According to Plastics & Rubber Weekly the detailed planning discussions for Plastics+ start at the PMMDA's annual general meeting on November 16 'to give the venture the official thumbs up'. This seems somewhat premature as the PMMDA is currently taking a neutral view and has yet to advise its members of the pros and cons of each exhibition. This will be done next week, and members' views will then form the outcome of the association's AGM,and thereby its decision to back either exhibition.
     The PMMDA's technical committee has already visited the venue, the new 90,000 sq m ExCel exhibition centre near the London City Airport, and according to Plastics & Rubber Weekly has given it the all clear to run the event, approving power, floor loading and lifting. But there still appear to be some reservations over the centre's suspended floor, headroom which may be too low for film towers, and access. Reed Exhibitions had itself considered the ExCel centre as a venue for Interplas but rejected it as unsuitable for the exhibition in its current format. Reed retains tenure at the NEC in Birmingham at the appropriate time to stage the next three triennial exhibitions.

Van Leer sells industrial packaging to focus on consumer

November 3, 2000 - The Finnish-Dutch packaging group Huhtamaki Van Leer, which also has operations in Britain, is selling its Van Leer Industrial division to Greif Brothers of the USA for $620 million. The division makes steel, plastic and fibre drums and bulk containers, and has performed less well than HVL's consumer packaging businesses, on which it intends to focus. Van Leer Industrial has plants in 40 countries. In the UK the sale involves Van Leer (UK) and Ecocontainer (UK), with plants at Ellesmere Port, Hull, Deeside and Burton.

Matting agent price increase

November 3, 2000 - Degussa-Hüls is increasing the global prices for its Acematt matting agents by 5 per cent on December 1. The increase represents higher raw material and energy costs, but does not yet reflect higher transportation costs in some regions, warns the company.

Shell, BASF and ATOFINA plan joint venture

November 3, 2000 - Shell, BASF and ATOFINA are to set up a jointly-owned company to run a petrochemicals plant in the USA. Sabina Petrochemicals will be owned 60 per cent by Shell, 24 per cent by BASF and 16 per cent by ATOFINA, and will build a C4 olefins complex at Port Arthur in Texas. Construction will begin next year, and plant start-up is scheduled for the first half of 2003. Feedstock will come from neighbouring plants owned by ATOFINA and BASF FINA Petrochemicals.
     The Sabina plant will incorporate a butadiene extraction unit supplying around 400,000 tonnes of butadiene and an indirect alkylation unit producing a petrol blending component.
 ATOFINA has also announced plans for a 230,000 tonnes impact polystyrene line to be built at its Carville, Louisiana, USA site. The line is said to be the largest in the world and will take the capacity of the site up to 750,000 tonnes/year, making it the world's largest polystyrene production site.

Higher volumes at DSM

November 3, 2000 - Higher sales volumes in its Polymers and Industrial Chemicals division helped push DSM's profits up to its best-ever third quarter result. Sales of the division were up 45 per cent in value, on a volume increase of 8 per cent. The higher sales volumes brought higher margins, increasing profits 24 per cent. However within these figures, polymers saw margins squeezed by higher raw material prices, while margins on fertilizers and melamine continued to improve.

Tampoprint moves

November 3, 2000 - Tampoprint UK and its subsidiary Padprint are combining their operations on a new site in Finchampstead, Berkshire, on November 13. They are moving to 11 Ivanhoe Road, Hogwood Lane Industrial Estate, Finchampstead, Berkshire RG40 4QQ. Telephone will be 0118 973 0500 and fax 0118 973 0725. The company now also has its own web address at www.tampoprint.co.uk.

Mikron to buy Axxicon

November 2, 2000 - Swiss mouldmaking group Mikron is planning to buy Axxicon of the Netherlands and an as-yet unidentified but big American mouldmaker. The Axxicon board has recommended acceptance of Mikron's SFr 124 million offer.
     Mikron will integrate the two companies into a new division which will have 900 employees in 10 plants. The new division would focus on high tech moulds for high volume plastic parts, a business sector which Mikron says is worth SFr 20 billion and is growing at about 20 per cent annually. Axxicon is prominent in tools for medical appliances, telectronics and gear systems, while the American company works in medical technology, personal care, communications and packaging. Addition of the Axxicon gear systems business would boost Mikron's activities in this area to SFr 140 million a year.

Tough water-borne coating for a wide range of substrates

November 2, 2000 - A water-borne coating which is said to bond irrevocably to the surface of plastics and rubbers without cracking, chipping, peeling or fading has been introduced by Kolorbond. The company already makes solvent-borne coatings for PVC and ABS, but the new water-borne acrylic copolymer coating is said to have a much wider range of applications in virgin and recycled plastics and rubbers, and can also be used on aluminium, concrete and MDF and on flexible materials such as leather and vinyl.
     Solid colours and effects such as wood grain, marble, granite, pearlescent, metallic, matt, satin, gloss, textured and non-slip can also be achieved. The colour series is based on the RAL range, and Kolorbond has carried out more than 7,000 colour matches.
     Waterborne Kolorbond has been on trial extensively with Royal Plastics in Canada, which is developing a number of products using it. The coating can be applied by brush or spray, and Kolorbond has set up spraying centres in Swansea and near Birmingham.

GE buys PC sheet maker

November 2, 2000 - GE Plastics has expanded its Structured Products business by buying an American manufacturer of polycarbonate sheet and film.
     It has taken over NIM Plastics Corporation of Illinois which makes film and sheet under the NIMpact brand. GE plans to retain these products and their brand name.

New MD for Leyland & Birmingham

November 2, 2000 - Rubber compounder and processor Leyland & Birmingham, part of the Industrial Division of the UniPoly Group, has appointed David Oldham as managing director. He was previously managing director of IMI Norgren's Automotive Division Europe.