Chevron Phillips to invest in more Qatar polyethylene

October 31, 2001 - Chevron Phillips Chemical Co and Qatar Petroleum are to jointly develop a world-scale petrochemical plant in the state of Quatar. The two companies already have a joint venture, Qatar Chemical Company, which is currently building a 500,000 tonnes ethylene plant, a 450,000 tonnes polyethylene plant and a 47,000 tonnes hexene-1 plant scheduled for a third quarter 2002 start up.
     The new plant is scheduled for start up in 2007 and involves the development of an ethylene cracker with an initial capacity of 1 million tonnes, a polyethylene plant capable of up to 750,000 tonnes and associated utilities and off-site facilities.
     The ethylene cracker is expandable to 1·5 million tonnes, which would make it the world's largest.

PolyOne buys Spanish colour company

October 31, 2001 - PolyOne is to make its first acquisition since M A Hanna and Geon merged a year ago. It is to buy Spanish colour masterbatcher Transcolor, which will become PolyOne's first colour plant in southern Europe.
     Transcolor has around 20,000 tonnes of capacity with the emphasis on black and white. Revenue in 2000 was $30 million.
     PolyOne has had an involvement with Transcolor for some time and has used it to produce some products from its Saint-Ouen L'Aumône plant near Paris, allowing the plant to focus on colour additive systems for its local customers.

Cevolution prepares for European carbon fibre sales

October 31, 2001 - Conoco Cevolution has set up a European base in Amsterdam for its emerging carbon fibre business. The company is the successor to the Conoco carbon fibre business which, under DuPont's ownership of Conoco for 17 years, developed products for high performance (and so high cost) applications such as Earth satellites.
     The new company, started last year has a more down to earth vision to increase production volumes and so lower selling prices and increase applications. This has come through spinning technology sourced from DuPont which enables mesophase pitch to be pushed through spinarets faster, and the realisation that not every application needs ultra high performance tows - random and short fibre processes also have their place.
     Cevolution is currently building a 4,000 tonnes plant in Oklahoma, USA, which will start up in the first half of 2002.

Victrex ramps up PAEK output

October 31, 2001 - Sales of Victrex PEEK polyaryletherketone increased 21 per cent over the past year to 1,600 tonnes, which put pressure on the supply chain. Now the company has increased capacity to 2,300 tonnes and is working to push this up to 2,800 tonnes by October 2003.

Rolph moves to Borealis

October 31, 2001 - Borealis has set up a polyolefins business group headed by David Rolph, until May executive director of European Vinyls Corporation.

Dutch expansion by Hyperlast

October 31, 2001 - Polyurethane supplier Hyperlast has opened a new technical facility in Raamsdonksveer near Breda in the Netherlands. This also houses the European sales and technical service team.

Electric injection machines at prices you can afford

October 30, 2001 - One of the significant factors in the launch of so many electric injection moulding machines by European manufacturers at K2001 - there are machines from Arburg, Netstal, Engel, Krauss Maffei, Battenfeld, Ferromatik Milacron, MIR and Negri Bossi - is the erosion of the price premium for some of these machines. The traditional rule of thumb has been that electric machines cost around 40 per cent more than their equivalent hydraulic counterparts. This has meant that unless there is a particular, very good, reason for buying an electric, they were not competitive with hydraulics.
     Electric machines are undoubtedly more energy-efficient than hydraulics, and with the erosion of the premium, energy-saving alone becomes a strong reason for buying.
     Of course, everything is relative and does depend on where you start from. Ferromatik Milacron reckons to have cut the differential between its Elektra and its equivalent hydraulic machines by 80 per cent. If you assume the accepted premium of 40 per cent, this puts the price of a new Elektra very much in the region of hydraulic machines. But Ferromatik is charging a lot more for the Elektra - the previous version of which continues as the Elektra Classic - so there is still an appreciable difference.
     The new Elektra is being built more cheaply than its predecessor because Ferromatik says it has used designs already trialled and tested by Fanuc, taking out some R & D cost. This seems to have upset Fanuc, whose engineers saw the Elektra for the first time at K. Fanuc has a relationship with Cincinnati Milacron in the USA under which Milacron distributes the Fanuc Roboshot. But Fanuc's rest-of-the-world distributor for the Roboshot, Mitsui, says there is not the kind of relationship with Ferromatik Milacron in Europe which allows it to use Fanuc technology in this way.
     The electric machine premium also depends on just what machine comparisons are being made. It is normally a comparison with one of the company's own hydraulic machines, but when the company is already cheaper than its competitors, then an electric machine can be in the same price bracket as similar specification hydraulics.
     This is the argument from Negri Bossi whose new Elma has been built as a straightforward general purpose machine. It costs around 20 per cent more than Negri's own equivalent hydraulics, but because Negri Bossi machines are generally cheaper than similar machines from German companies, Negri feels that it has in this respect eliminated the premium.

UK moulding machine sellers feel the pinch

October 30, 2001 - The decline in the British market for injection moulding machines is second only to the collapse in the USA according to Demag Ergotech's managing director Helmar Franz.
     Figures compiled by Demag Ergotech show that this year the UK market fell back 31 per cent from 2000 - in the USA the market has plummeted 55 per cent. The company's home market of Germany fell back 15 per cent.
     To be fair, 2000 was an all-time high sales period for injection moulding machines. In Europe there were 16,400 machines sold - this year there will only be around 13,300.
     The effect on Demag Ergotech's business has been to drop sales by 9 per cent (comparing the first three quarters of this year with Q1 - Q3 2000). New orders in the same period have fallen 23 per cent and the company expects to finish the year 30 per cent down on 2000.

Now SIG revamps its extrusion blow moulding machine business

October 30, 2001 - Following the announcement only a couple of weeks ago by SIG that it is combining its SIG Plastics blow moulding machines business and the SASIB wet filling machines business of SIG Simonazzi as SIG Beverages, the Swiss-based packaging conglomerate is now to split up its extrusion blow moulding business. The production of machines for technical blow moulding, including vehicle fuel tanks, 3D and sequential blowing and large industrial containers, is to be operated independently as SIG Kautex from January next year, and the packaging machinery side of SIG Blowtec - the extrusion blow moulding division - will take in the SIG PETtec operation making single-stage injection stretch blow machines.
     In the past SIG has argued the apparent anomaly of having a technical blow moulding machinery business in a group which was avidly structuring itself for the total supply of packaging equipment and nothing else, as necessary because of the critical mass needed for future development. Hiving off the technical business would have created two companies with insufficient sales to fund research at the current level. Announcing the new structure SIG Plastics chief executive Werner Fillmann commented that SIG Kautex would be in a position to grow through the purchase of other businesses. He wouldn't be drawn on the reverse possibility.

Negri Bossi seeks public investment for expansion

October 30, 2001 - Italian injection moulding machine maker Negri Bossi is to be floated publicly and the revenue generated used to buy additional businesses.
     Negri Bossi was sold by Kvaerner to Private Equity Partners of Milan in 1999 after a chequered history as part of the John Brown group.
     The flotation will take place in the first week of November. The sale of 51 per cent of the shares is expected to raise L40 - 50 billion with which the company is anticipated to buy an Italian injection machinery maker to extend its range, and a German company, possibly in ancillaries, as a way into the German market. The balance of the shares will be owned by some of the company's management and venture capital company Ridgeway Investment of Luxembourg.

New process gives SABIC alpha olefins capacity

October 30, 2001 - Saudi Basic Industries Corporation and German engineering company Linde have developed a new way of making linear alpha olefins which are used, among other purposes, as co-monomers in LLDPE production. The new α - Sablin process uses a one-stage reactor to make high purity products that do not need any subsequent finishing processes, leading to manufacturing cost reductions.
     Worldwide production of alpha olefins was 2·525 million tonnes in 1999 and is expected to rise to 3·765 million tonnes by 2003. About half the production is used in polymers.
     Sabic is to build a plant using the new technology at The United Petrochemical Company site at Al-Jubail in Saudi Arabia. The plant will have a capacity of 150,000 tonnes and is expected to come on stream early in 2004.

Demag safeguards users of alternative to Mucell

October 27, 2001 - Demag Ergotech has forestalled gas injection type patent conflicts for its new Ergocell cellular moulding process with an agreement signed a couple of days ago with Trexel - patent holder for the MuCell process - that Ergocell customers should buy a MuCell licence at reduced cost. Demag will also make available equipment for moulders to use the MuCell process.
     MuCell uses carbon dioxide in a super critical state to foam mouldings at micron levels to reduce polymer weight in a component and impart the other characteristics of foamed mouldings such as reduced warping and sinking and overall improved dimensional stability. The liquid CO₂ is dispensed part way along a specially designed screw which mixes it with the polymer and allows it to gas out on injection.
     The Ergocell process separates the gas addition from injection by dosing it into the melt after plasticisation. A mixing chamber mixes the CO₂ into the melt and the add-on unit holds the mixture under pressure until the nozzle valve is opened and a separate ram injects the melt into the mould.
     While the Ergocell process appears to differ radically from MuCell, Demag felt that the large number of MuCell patents still at application stage held open the possibility of unwitting infringement by processors using Ergocell.
     Demag claims a number of improvements from using Ergocell compared with MuCell. Ergocell consists of a standard 20 D injection unit with a self-contained liquid CO₂ injection system fitted between the barrel and the nozzle. It can be retrofitted, and can be removed to enable the machine to be used in standard configuration. The hardware does not require a licence for use, and so is reckoned to be cheaper than fitting a MuCell unit.
     In processing the ratio of CO₂ to melt can be controlled volumetrically. Because it is not mixed into the melt by the screw but instead by a dedicated mixer, there is less likelihood of shear damage to the polymer. And as the point of injection into the melt is controlled, it is more feasible to inject a skin of dense material first and last to produce a sandwich moulding.
     www.demag-ergotech.com

Ube to open Spanish nylon plant and plans to increase electric moulding machine sales in Europe

October 27, 2001 - Japanese speciality nylon producer Ube is to build a plant in Spain as part of a Eur 90 million investment. Last week the company set up Ube Engineering Plastics in Castellon de la Plana, north of Valencia, as its Atlantic region - Europe, the Americas and Africa - headquarters. The investment at Castellon includes an expansion of existing caprolactam production and the construction of its first polymerisation plant in Europe.
     Nylon production will be set up in two stages. The first will be a 10,000 tonnes facility for high viscosity copolyamides of 6/66 and 6/12 and several high viscosity grades of homopolyamide 6, due on line early in 2004. This will be followed by a second line of 20,000 tonnes at the end of 2005. Output from these plants will replace material currently imported from Japan.
     Ube also builds injection moulding machines - it makes the biggest all-electrics in the world at 1,400 tonnes - and is planning to increase its European penetration. At present there are only some 30 hydraulic machines in Europe, but the start-up of a European plant for an unidentified automotive supplier from Japan will bring in a number of all-electric machines,and Ube plans to use this as the basis for setting up support for electric machines. Over the next two years it anticipates opening sales offices for electric machines in the UK and France. Germany already has an outlet through the existing Ube office, opened 30 years ago in Düsseldorf.

Basell sees polyolefin market revival - despite September 11

October 26, 2001 - In Britain there has been much public outcry over the suggestion by a civil servant to her bosses that the tragic events of September 11 would be a good smokescreen behind which to publish information for which they wanted minimal press coverage. But perhaps this was a more widespread opportunist act.
     Volker Trautz, chief executive of Basell Polyolefins, suggested at a K2001 press conference that some polymer companies may be using the downturn in business attributed to the aftermath of September 11 as an excuse for the poor trading performance they were already experiencing. Asked if Basell had revised its forecasts because of the New York atrocity he said that while September 11 had certainly had an impact on business, the extent was yet to be seen, and that in fact business in September and October 'wasn't that bad' - but 'many people jumped on the bandwagon giving difficulties they already had before'.
     In the polyolefins business, where poor or negative profitability has pole-axed company returns for the past couple of years, there are signs of a return to normality. The underlying reason for the parlous state of the polyolefin business today was the 6 - 8 per cent annual growth rates from 1997 to 1999, a period during which many expansion projects - 'too many as it has turned out' - were approved. In the following years a combination of higher oil prices and a slowing global economy meant that the new investment created a serious over-capacity in polyolefins.
     Now, with only a small amount of new capacity scheduled to come on stream after next year, 'we are confident that traditional growth rates will return for polyolefins' said Mr Trautz. He said that in Europe polyolefin growth is already coming back; in North America where the over-capacity is the most serious - he suggested 20 per cent - there was a slight come-back and he anticipated growth rates of 5 - 6 per cent in 2003 - 2004; and he predicted that Asia-Pacific and South America would remain bright spots for growth but would be 'not as attractive as they were.'
     Basell is cutting its own excess capacity in a scrap and build process. The company is also revamping its approach to selling polyolefins and is replacing the distinct PE and PP businesses with a single regional structure for both materials focused on specific end user markets.

Polyolefins chop DSM's third quarter results

October 26, 2001 - According to DSM in its third quarter results statement 'the economic slowdown that became increasingly apparent in the first half of 2001 quickly gained momentum after the September 11 events'. The result was that groupwide DSM's revenue fell 4 per cent on the 2000 figure, although sales for the first three months showed an increase of 3 on 2000. Pre-tax profits were down 29 per cent on both the quarter and the first three quarters.
     Petrochemicals - which includes both DSM's polyethylene and polypropylene businesses - had a lower sales revenue and posted 'a substantially lower operating profit' quarter on quarter. Overall the Polymer and Industrial Chemicals group saw profits drop 55 per cent.
     DSM claims a high level of efficiency for its two polyolefins production sites at Geleen in the Netherlands and Gelsenkirchen in Germany. It is planning to shut down some PP capacity early next year to ease the pressure on prices and will replace it later in the year with more modern plant.
     This trimming of capacity and plant efficiency is against the background of a search for a buyer of the business - with the clock ticking down to DSM's strategy to have switched its main income stream to higher technology industries by 2005.

DSM denies bid for Rhodia

October 23, 2001 - As the doors are about to open at the K2001 exhibition the inevitable rumour mill has ground into life.
     French nylon maker Rhodia is being tipped as a takeover target by DSM and BASF. The French stock exchange has called for a comment and DSM has issued a non-committal statement with all the innocence of smoke and fire being unrelated.
     DSM confirms that it is 'evaluating various options to reinforce its business portfolio' and that it 'has had and will have contacts with many companies'. It has inquired about Aventis' position as a shareholder of Rhodia but this 'did not result in any specific conclusions, not even regarding the basis for a negotiation'.
     DSM endorses Rhodia's affirmation that the two companies have not been in contact, either at management or at board level.

Klöckner Pentaplast sold

October 23, 2001 - Buyout financier Cinven is to buy the Klöckner Pentaplast Group from Klöckner Werke. Klöckner Pentaplast has recently been confirmed as Europe's biggest producer of thermoplastic sheet.
     The Cinven bid values it at Eur 925 million and has yet to be approved. Klöckner Pentaplast's turnover to the year ended September 2001 is expected to be Eur 870 million. Under new ownership the group is said to be in a position to 'take advantage of ongoing acquisition opportunities'.
     The existing management team continues to run the group.
     www.cinven.com

Mann + Hummel to buy Solvay automotive components operation

October 23, 2001 - Solvay is planning to sell its automotive air induction systems and technical parts business to Mann + Hummel. The division operates from eight sites worldwide in France, Germany, Spain, the UK, the USA and Brazil, makingcomponents such as engine covers, heating/ventilating/air conditioning systems, windscreen wash and headlamp cleaning systems, and air induction components.
     Mann + Hummel is active in air intakes and oil and fuel filtration.
     www.solvay.com
     www.mann-hummel.com

LinPac appoints Filmco manager

October 23, 2001 - LinPac Plastics has appointed Alan Westbury as general manager of the Sedgefield-based LinPac Filmco plant. He has worked in LinPac Plastics since 1972.

Meech sets up Euro subsidiary

October 23, 2001 - Meech Static Eliminators is setting up a subsidiary - Meech Elektrostatik (MESA) - in Belgium. The company will provide sales and support for customers and distributors in Benelux, France and Germany.

Plastics demand slows, and keeps slowing

October 20, 2001 - Western European demand for thermoplastics increased last year at its lowest rate for five years, according to the latest report from Applied Market Information. And it's going to get slower.
     Total demand of 31·6 million tonnes was ahead of 1999 by just over 3 per cent which AMI says is in line with average trends for the previous decade, but points to a marked slow down for many markets. And the forecast figure for 2001 is of little more than 2 per cent growth.
     The growth average was pushed down by slower demand for commodity materials, and AMI reports that PE, PP, PS, PVC and PET grew by 2·7 per cent against a growth of 7·4 per cent in engineering materials. Extremes of demand were felt by polycarbonate, with double digit growth, and PET for which continuing packaging developments forced up demand by 14 per cent, while polypropylene demand grew by less than 2 per cent compared with growth rates of 6 - 7 per cent through most of the 1990s and PVC recorded a growth of just over 1 per cent.
     Contributing factors to the overall picture were destocking following inventory build-ups during 1999 in fear of the Millennium bug, and falling prices deterring processors from acquiring stocks. In the UK - the weakest of the European markets - £/Eur exchange difficulties triggered reversals of past inward investment in areas such as telectronics, reducing demand to processors.
     The report, AMI's 2001 West European Plastics Industry Report costs £245/Eur 395.
     www.amiplastics.com

DuPont Dow to add new metallocene EPDMs

October 20, 2001 - DuPont Dow is to extend its Nordel IP EPDM series with new gas phase metallocene polymers to be made at the 90,000 tonnes Union Carbide EPDM plant at Seadrift in Texas, USA. Under an agreement just signed with Dow the new materials will bring together DuPont Dow's metallocene EPDM technology, Dow's Insite catalysts and Union Carbide's Unipol gas phase process.
     The new materials will be in granular form and benefits are listed as 'outstanding processability, low residuals and attractive economics'.
     www.dupont-dow.com

Dow revises PMDI plans

October 20, 2001 - Dow Chemical has slowed down its expansion of polymeric MDI capacity and decided not to increase the capacity of its La Porte, Texas, USA plant as it announced in August last year, but to concentrate production at its Freeport, Texas plant.
     A new PMDI plant is to be built at Freeport, starting next year and coming on stream in 2004, and the similarly-sized La Porte PMDI plant will then be closed. The US expansion announced last year will still go ahead, but is now not expected to be on-line until 2006.

DuBay underway

October 20, 2001 - The joint venture PBT co-operation between Bayer and DuPont has been given a name - DuBay Polymer. Work has started on the 80,000 tonnes plant at Hamm-Uentrop in Germany, where DuPont currently produces polyamide and polyester and which is the head office of DuPont Sabanci Polyester, a 50/50 polyesters fibres joint venture between Sabanci and DuPont.
     The plant is costing more than Eur 50 million, and will come on stream in 2003. Each partner will take base polymer from the plant and make commercial polymers independently.

Kiefel buys more winder business

October 20, 2001 - Kiefel Extrusion of Germany is to take over the winder business of Christian Maier on April 1 next year. In October 2000 the company bought Wintech Winding Technology of Switzerland. The full winder range will be sold under the Kirion name and will extend from low cost contact winders through multifunctional centre/surface/gap winders to turret and orbital winders.
     www.maier-heidenheim.de
     www.kiefel-extrusion.com

Film gauging co-operation

October 20, 2001 - Two competitors in process control of blown film are to co-operate in thickness measurement systems. Sussex Instruments has granted a license to Kündig of Switzerland to use its patents on non-contact capacitance gauging of delicate or sticky films.
     Sussex and Kündig have already co-operated in this area, with Sussex using Kündig's ring to carry its RoboHead system. Now both companies are to offer complete non-contact gauging systems.
     www.sussex-gauging.co.uk
     www.kundig-hch.ch

PolyOne takes over Bayer's NBR/PVC

October 20, 2001 - Bayer is passing over the compounding and sales of its NBR/PVC blends to PolyOne. PolyOne has been making Bayer's Krynac for more than 10 years and as Bayer withdraws from selling blends to concentrate on NBR production, PolyOne is introducing ProFlex MB masterbatches as direct replacements.
     There will also be ProFlex grades to replace Bayer's Perbunan. This is a latex-blended PVC/NBR made in Germany at facilities that Bayer is planning to close soon. The two companies have worked together to develop mechanical blends to provide equivalent properties.
     The new ProFlex materials will use identical grade nomenclature to the Krynac and Perbunan they are replacing.
     www.polyone.com

M & G taps Mexican PET boom

October 20, 2001 - Gruppo Mossi & Ghisolfi (M & G), the family-owned company that bought Shell's PET business, is to build a new plant in Mexico which it says will make it the second largest supplier of PET for packaging in the world. It will incorporate the world's biggest single line polymerisation plant, with a nominal capacity of 275,000 tonnes. This will lift M & G's worldwide capacity to close on 1 million tonnes.
     The plant will use both melt phase technology (from DuPont) and solid state technology - provided by UOP, the company to whom M & G sold solid state polymerisation specialist Sinco Enginering in October 2000.
     Mexico has the fastest growth rate for PET consumption in the Americas - 15 per cent in 2000. This is said to be because Mexico was a latecomer to the PET market and, as it is the second largest consumer of soft drinks in the Americas, there is a high conversion level from glass to PET. At 420,000 tonnes the Mexican market is larger than those of established PET markets such as Italy and the UK.

Who's who in sheet extrusion

October 20, 2001 - Europe's 50 biggest producers of plastics sheet are detailed in a new report from Applied Market Information. The research company says that between them these companies consumed some 2·3 million tonnes of polymer in 2000, and six of them each make more than 100,000 tonnes/year of sheet.
     The top 10 ranking is:

Rank	Company	Head office	Principle sheet products
1	Klöckner Pentaplast	Germany	PVC, APET
2	Solvay	Belgium	PVC
3	Huhtamäki	Finland	PS
4	British Vita	UK	ABS, PP
5	RPC Group	UK	PP, PS, PET
6	EVC International	Netherlands	PVC
7	Autobar Group	UK	PS, PET
8	Barlo Plastics Europe	Ireland	PMMA, PETG, PS, PC
9	Coexpan	Spain	PS
10	Dow Chemical Co	USA	PS

     Corporate performance and ownership among thermoplastic sheet extruders - a review of Europe's 50 leading players costs £350/Eur 560.
     www.amiplastics.com

CCL swallows profits while the government considers the evidence

October 18, 2001 - Reactions to the government's reception of the polymer processing industry's cries of foul play over energy taxation are starting in earnest. In April the heads of seven industrial bodies with interests in polymer processing wrote to the then Industry Minister Stephen Byers to point ot how, against a background of economic decline, the government's Climate Change Levy would be a crippling, illogical tax on industry.
     Five months later, on September 18, the seven were granted an audience by Lord Sainsbury, now the minister for Science and Innovation at the DTI.
     The outcome was that he would consider the effects of the CCL once he had seen details of the losses it was causing. Long before the levy was introduced the British Plastics Federation had calculated the effect on a broad span of plastics processors. Lord Sainsbury has asked for 'robust facts' of the levy's effects.
     Now the BPF has given him the facts in a letter stressing once again that the tax is not revenue neutral as the government has insisted, but that the reduction in employers' National Insurance contributions intended to offset it would only cover around 20 per cent of the burden. To back this up the BPF cites eleven examples in which plastics processing companies are paying tens or hundreds of thousand of pounds in increased taxation. This is against a background of a 25 per cent reduction in energy use over the past 10 years, while high energy using industries such as chemicals manufacturing and metal and glass conversion receive an 80 per cent rebate of the tax if they meet energy saving targets.
     The BPF had pointed out that companies based in Northern Ireland already had the highest electricity prices in Europe. Addition of the CCL brings energy costs up to double those south of the border in the Irish Republic. Lord Sainsbury's response has been to suggest writing to the Northern Ireland Minister for Industry and Enterprise.
     The French government had planned a tax on industrial energy. BPF director general Peter Davis in his letter pointed out to Lord Sainsbury that this has been withdrawn in favour of voluntary agreements for energy reduction - a strategy it had urged the government to follow when the CCL was proposed.
     The BPF once again asked the government to withdraw the CCL and replace it with voluntary agreements to reduce energy use, or at least to redraw the rules for negotiated agreements to enable plastics processors to receive a rebate for reduced energy usage, and to reduce - and under no cirumstances increase - the rate of tax.
     The Polymer Machinery Manufacturers and Distributors Association, whose members are a step removed from but indirectly affected by the CCL as their customers have their ability to invest curtailed, has been rather more forthright. In a more broadly distributed letter echoing the points made by the BPF chairman Brian Thorne commented:
     'I was disappointed in Lord Sainsbury's and therefore I presume the government's understanding of what manufacturing industry is about. Other EU governments either give a more constructive and less bureaucratic help and do not impose the multiplicity of taxes on industry or fuel, electricity etc that our government does. Most people in industry, be it plastics, rubber or others, are convinced that the government does not care or understand. Perhaps it will when unemployment climbs, but then it will blame it on something else.
     'I think an industry employing more than 250,000 people with a turnover of more than £18 billion is worth saving.'

Tooling Products saved by Sermo

October 18, 2001 - French toolmaker Sermo has bought Tooling Products, which its former owner Weir Group was planning to close if it could not be sold. The company was put up for sale - alongside sister company G Perry - as part of a restructuring move by Weir Group. It will be integrated with other Sermo group operations - two in France, one in Poland and one in Brazil. The Sermo group has around 800 employees and specialises in moulds for the automotive component market, including instrument panels, bumpers and heater boxes.

EC stops fibre takeover

October 18, 2001 - The European Commission has vetoed the acquisition by CVC Capital Partners Group of Austrian fibres maker Lenzing. CVC already controls Acordis, Lenzing's principal rival in Europe and only rival in the United States. The combination of Lenzing and Acordis would have created or strengthened a dominant position in a number of fibres markets, reducing choice and leading to higher prices for customers and end consumers, says the Commission.

Automated sorting the key to bottle recycling

October 18, 2001 - The Waste and Resources Action Programme - WRAP - is considering part-funding an automated plastic bottle sorting plant. It says this could remove an important economic barrier to recycling created by the cost of manual sorting.
     The organisation, which was set up to create stable and efficient markets for recycled materials and products, says that high collection and sorting costs make collection of plastics unattractive to local authorities and so collection levels remain relatively low. The lack of automated sorting facilities is a barrier to plastics recycling, as the existing manual sorting methods are expensive.
     To achieve the economies of scale required, it is expected such a plant would need a throughput of at least 10,000 tonnes a year.
     If WRAP decides that such a project would help achieve its goals it would conduct a competitive tendering process to award a grant for part funding.
     www.wrap.org.uk

PEEK Irish distributor

October 18, 2001 - Victrex has appointed Dell Polymers of Longford, Country Longford, as its distributor for PEEK polyaryletherketone materials in Ireland.

In Mould Welding could halve the cost of hollow mouldings

October 15, 2001 - An in-mould process for assembling hollow products such as automotive power steering reservoirs has been developed by Birkby's Plastics in association with Swan Valley Mould Tools. The In Mould Welding process could account for up to half of Birkby's structural plastics business within 5 - 7 years, and is now available for licensing by other moulders and toolmakers in non-competing industries.
     In essence the process incorporates techniques similar to several other enhanced injection moulding technologies, but Birkby's says its key parameters are sufficiently different to be patented. It is intended to replace assembly processes, primarily ultrasonic or vibration welding, offering reduced overall cycle times and cutting total tooling costs.
     The way it works is simple in concept. A family tool is used to make the two components to be assembled, with the cavities in both mould halves. After the primary shot the tool is opened and the cavity plate on the moving half pivots - 'nodding' rather than rotating - to bring the two half mouldings in line. The press shuts again and a second shot is injected around the mating surfaces to encapsulate the joint. The welding with which Birkby's has termed the process is between the collar and the two components, rather than between the two components themselves.
     In the demonstration tool a filter is inserted between the two halves by a robot, this replacing a separate ultrasonic welding operation in conventional moulding. Retention of the filter in this case is by the shrinkage of the 'cup' into which it is placed.
     The patents applied for cover three areas of the technique. One is the way in which the cavity plate is rotated, the control of the movement, and the method of positioning the stops - which is currently not being disclosed. A second facet of the patents is the use and sequencing of the hot runner, which is crucial in relation to the third facet, the use of a single injection unit to provide both the primary and welding shots.
     In Mould Welding is intended for use on the current level of injection moulding machine technology. It relies on the machine being able to deliver an accurate welding shot from a barrel sized according to the shot volume of the component, which could be a 20:1 ratio. Other processes achieving similar ends have used two injection units, presumably to give the same control accuracy for the two shots. The development work has been done on a Demag machine with NC4 control and software input from Demag. Modifications are needed to the machine control to operate In Mould Welding, and Birkby's says that in principal these modifications could be made to any modern machine.
     The use of a second injection shot to weld the component halves may seem expensive in machine time compared with the cost of running a welding machine, but the welding operation takes place during the cooling cycle, and Birkby's says it has not seen any cycle time penalties. In fact, opening the press immediately after injection aids cooling.
     The additional costs of the pivoting mechanism in the tool more than offset the cost of welding tooling nests (and ultimately the welding machine itself) justifying Birkby's claim for a reduction in total tooling costs.
     Other savings are through elimination of labour for the assembly process and maintaining a reject level equal to or better than that achieved by welding. Overall cost benefits ultimately depend on the specific component, but Birkby's is suggesting savings of between 10 and 50 per cent on conventional manufacture.
     The process has been developed in simple form using a single impression tool for a familiar component. But, apart from obvious tooling complexities, there is no reason why it should not be used in multi-cavity form. Size is limited only by the ultimate size of the family tooling. Trials have been conducted with nylon and polypropylene, but there is no apparent material consideration limiting applications. Trials are being conducted with filled materials but these are expected to pose no problems.
     The potential for the process is reckoned to be huge, and Birkby's is only restricting its use in the fields in which it itself operates - primarily automotive and electronic. Moulders in the medical and cosmetic markets, for example, could license the process.
     Similarly, while Birkby's is principally involved in technical component moulding, it sees possible applications in packaging.
     www.birkbys.co.uk

Dow Corning expands atmospheric plasma interests

October 15, 2001 - Dow Corning has bought the plasma-related assets of Cork-based Plasma Ireland and set up Dow Corning Plasma. The new company is operating in the area of atmospheric pressure plasma processing, a surface modification process said to overcome the limitations normally associated with conventional coating technologies and vacuum-based chemical vapour deposition processes. It does not require low pressure or vacuum conditions and can be used for continuous processing. Potential applications range from protective barrier layers and adhesion primers to soil-resistant fabrics.
     www.dowcorning.com

Ex-stock availability clinches extrusion sale

October 15, 2001 - Plastic Extruders of Wickford in Essex has supplied a line to Trotter for its new plant in Cyprus. The company is the local subsidiary of the Elflite Corporation which makes an extruded flexible lighting system. The Plastex machinery comprises a single screw extruder, water batch, haul off, coiler and chiller and was specified partly because it was available from stock.
     www.plastex.co.uk

Automotive moulder in receivership

October 15, 2001 - Injection moulder Plastic Moulding (Cradley) has gone into administrative receivership. The company operates from a 13 acre site in Halesowen, serving mainly the automotive industry. Its major customers include Rover and Land Rover.
     Plastic Moulding (Cradley) turns over £13 million but increased competition from abroad and pressure on margins have contributed to losses which have built up debts of £10 million.

US PVC/TPE compounder buys in the Far East

October 15, 2001 - US compounder Teknor Apex has bought Singapore Polymer Corporation which makes flexible and rigid PVC, thermoplastic elastomer, polyolefin and styrenic compounds, as well as colour and additive masterbatches.
     Teknor Apex is one of the largest plastics compounders in North America. Its products include PVC and TPE compounds and colour concentrates, sold in more than 75 countries.
     www.teknorapex.com

Sandretto opens German office

October 15, 2001 - Sandretto has opened a German office, moving in with sister Cannon group company Windsor Kunststofftechnologie in Hanau.
     The two companies will cooperate in injection moulding machine sales, with Sandretto selling machines and Windsor carrying out installation, maintenance, spares supply and technical service.
     Managing director of the new Sandretto Deutschland is Ralf Cezanne, until recently with Netstal selling optical disc and PET preform systems in Germany.

Mannesmann Plastics Machinery not sold

October 11, 2001 - The sale by Siemens of the Mannesmann Plastics Machinery Group is definitely off. After a couple of weeks of speculation Siemens and the prospective purchaser Apax Partners have agreed to cancel the deal with, apparently, no comebacks. At one stage Siemens was understood to be considering legal action against Apax.
     According to Apax the purchase has been sunk by the profit forecasts for MPM which, like most plastics machinery businesses at the moment, is feeling a draught from reduced equipment sales - although Siemens feels the profits forecasts are not all that bad but is not commenting on the suggestion that profits fell around 25 per cent during the summer. The banks backing Apax withdrew support to pay the price (never confirmed but widely quoted as around Eur 800 million) and the agreement between Apax and Siemens had no provision to renegotiate the price. However, Siemens chairman Heinrich von Pierer said in La Tribune earlier this week that the problem lay within Apax itself, and was not the result of differences over the price.
     The collapse of the sale leaves MPM still within Siemens, which 'maybe will keep it for a while' according to a press spokeswoman. Certainly Siemens is 'not in a rush right now' to find another buyer. Financial commentators are, inevitably, in a rush and have so far put truck maker MAN, plastics machinery manufacturer SMS and financial company Investcorp - beaten to the draw by Apax in the original negotiations - in the frame.
     Another casualty of the collapse is Emesta of Switzerland, which owns nylon manufacturer Ems Chemie and within days of the Apax/Siemens agreement being announced agreed to buy Netstal from Apax. Now the triumphant return of Netstal to Swiss ownership has been scuppered. Whether Emesta's owner, politician Christoph Blocher, will resurrect the deal remains to be seen, but Siemens has been firm so far on the policy of selling MPM as an entity and as it said this week, feels no particular urgency to do so.

Light stabiliser expansion by Ciba

October 11, 2001 - Ciba has opened another production plant for its Tinuvin light stabiliser as part of a CHF 70 million worldwide expansion in this sector. The new CHF 10 million plant at Lampertheim in Germany is now the biggest manufacturer of Tinuvin 770, which is also made near Bologna in Italy, and for which a new plant is coming on stream at Puebla in Mexico next year.

MBI at window fabricator

October 11, 2001 - PVC window fabricator John Fredericks Plastics of Huddersfield has been bought by a team led by managing director Steve Jones for £12 million. JFP reckons to be the third largest independent trade fabricator of PVC windows, doors and conservatories in the UK.

Sandretto accepts Milacron patent claims

October 11, 2001 - Milacron has cut another notch on the stick it is using to beat competitors who control their machines with personal computers. Sandretto has agreed to buy a license to use Milacron's US Patent 5,062,052 which covers PC control of plastics machinery. Earlier this year Milacron started action through the International Trade Commission against Sandretto, Boy, Sidel and SIPA, and other non-specific importers of machinery to the USA alleging infringement of its patent.
     The agreement with Sandretto also covers Cannon, and another Cannon Group company Automata.

SIG realigns its blow moulding machinery business

October 11, 2001 - SIG Group of Switzerland, which last spring bought the Krupp Kunststofftechnik blow moulding machinery business and set it up as SIG Plastics International has now combined it with a more recent purchase, that of the SASIB liquid packaging machinery business.
     Because the two companies are both active in the same market segment they have been united as SIG Beverages, offering a complate range of beverage filling lines. The combined company is now the largest in the SIG Group, the other two divisions being SIG Pack, which makes packaging systems for food products and consumer goods, and SIG Combibloc, which makes aseptic carton packages for fruit juices and milk.

Expansion and contraction at Rohm and Haas

October 9, 2001 - Rohm and Haas has expanded its position in rubber to metal bonding agents with the acquisition of the Megum product line from Chemetall of Germany, and is in the process of closing its European manufacturing facility for tin stabilisers for PVC.
     The acquisition of the Chemetall Megum business also includes production from Chemetall's subsidiaries in Italy and Brazil. It will become part of Rohm and Haas's Adhesives and Sealants business and will be integrated with the existing Thixon bonding agent range.
     The closure of the methyl tin production plant at Semoy in France 'for the foreseeable future' leaves sourcing of Rohm and Haas's full range of tin stabilisers from its Cincinnati, USA, plant, where new high performance additives have been developed and put into production.

UK materials handling equipment for Polish cable factory

October 9, 2001 - BMH Chronos Richardson has started deliveries of materials handling equipment to Polish cable manufacturer Krakowska Fabryka Kabli as part of a £690,000 project through Farrel.
     The equipment consists of a new mixer feed system, and upgrades to an existing Chronos Richardson system supplied during the 1980s. New equipment is being supplied to handle three new materials on an existing K7 line, and the old SOW900 controller is being upgraded to a CR3000 process control system. Other modifications are being made to the existing carbon black and white fillers intake. The new mixer gravity feed system is being installed on a K5 mixer and will weigh batches of carbon black, white fillers, oils and polymers. It will be controlled by a CR3000 process control system interfaced with the Farrel mixer control system.

Arrk extends French penetration

October 9, 2001 - Rapid prototyping specialist Arrk has bought a majority holding in French prototyping company LCO-Protomoule of Annecy, near the Swiss border. Earlier this year it bought a majority in Larher of Paris.

Jackdaw to import Polish acetal

October 9, 2001 - Jackdaw Polymers has signed a distribution agreement with Zaklady Azotowe of Poland to sell the Polish-made Tarnoform acetal co-polymers.Tarnform is made in four standard grades for injection moulding and extrusion, but can also be compounded to order.
     www.britishvita.com

DuPont gets more nylon back from carpet scrap

October 9, 2001 - DuPont has tripled capacity at its carpet reclaim plant at Calhoun in Georgia, USA, and can now recover more than 3,000 tonnes/year of nylon 66 which is reprocessed back into its Zytel and Minlon products. Roughly twice as much carpet has to be reclaimed as nylon is recovered. New equipment has been installed at the plant, which is now said to be running at 95 per cent process efficiency.
     By contrast, DSM and Honeywell shut down their joint venture carpet reclaim plant in August because it wasn't efficient enough. The caprolactam reclamation plant, with a capacity of 45,000 tonnes/year was running at about 60 per cent capacity.

Expansion for composites manufacturer

October 9, 2001 - Aerospace and automotive composites manufacturer Brookhouse Composites has opened an extra 5,000 m² of manufacturing space incorporating a 900 m² Class 100,000 clean room. The new plant is at Holme Mill in Darwen, adjacent to Brookhouse's existing India Mill complex, and the new clean room is nearly three times bigger than the existing clean room.
     Into the new site are going two autoclaves, one 2 × 4 m and the other 3 × 12 m, which complement the three autoclaves in use at India Mill.