This page is an archive of news and news background stories. Stories are placed here when they expire from the news pages and are filed in date order, most recent on the top. Go to the most recent or browse through the headline links.
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Dow Europe is increasing the prices of all grades of its Styron polystyrene on December 1. Prices will rise by Eur 70/tonne for monthly business on all grades of its GPPS, HIPS and Styron A-Tech advanced technology polystyrene. The company says it experienced some unjustified price erosion during November following insufficient price increases achieved in October. 'As all short term and mid term indicators point to feedstock costs remaining at historic highs, we have to act now and over the coming months to protect and restore the margins in our business.'
The JR Dare Engineering company, which went into receivership in 2001, has been taken over by JBT Engineering of Manchester. Dare had earlier bought out the Bipel range of presses, pelletisers and preformers. JBT has been operating from Dare's Trafford Park plant for some time, and now has added its machinery control and automation systems to the Dare range to build a claim that it is one of the few companies offering a single source of machine design and manufacture, control and automation packages, AC/DC drives and controls, PLC and SCADA systems and safety guarding.
American slitter/rewinder agency for Jenton November 25, 2003
American slitter/rewinder manufacturer Stanford Products has appointed Jenton International as representative for the UK and Ireland. Stanford has been building machines for 60 years, and in addition to its trademarked line of Doctor Machines, produces a range of duplex differential slitter rewinders for the conversion of packaging films and film-laminates.
Jenton will stock spare parts and provide full field-service support for Stanford's entire product line.
EC proposes to lift ban on some novel food packaging November 18, 2003
The European Commission is proposing to take the brakes off some forms of food packaging and allow novel packaging such as 'active' and 'intelligent' packaging that displays information about the condition of its contents.
It is proposing to revise the Council Directive 89/109/EEC of December 21, 1988, which lays down general principles for food contact materials. Existing legislation states that food contact materials should not trigger any chemical reactions which might change the food's taste, appearance, texture or smell or alter its chemical composition. This applies even if the changes are beneficial, and effectively prevents the use of 'active' packaging, which interacts with food to reduce oxygen levels or add flavourings or preservatives, and 'intelligent' packaging which can monitor the food and transmit information on its quality.
Use of 'active' packaging containing oxygen scavengers could absorb the oxygen released by the food in the package, and discourage the growth of the micro-organisms that can form mould on bread and pizza crusts or cause vegetable oils to go rancid, reducing the risk of food poisoning and helping the food to keep its flavour for longer.
'Intelligent' packaging can, for instance, change colour to let the customer know how fresh the food is and show if the food has been spoiled because of a change in temperature during storage or a leak in the packaging.
The change proposal will allow the use of active components in food packaging as long as they comply with other EU legislation on food safety. Labelling will inform users about the nature of the active packaging.
One of the safeguards the change in regulations would bring would be to impose traceability on food contact materials. Traceability was established in Article 18 of Regulation (EC) No 178/2002 to identify and trace all stages of food production in the event of any possible contamination. The proposed Regulation applies the same principles to the production of food contact materials so businesses in the sector can identify where food contact materials and substances used in their manufacture have come from and where they have been supplied to.
New material will improve opto-electronic devices November 18, 2003
A new plastic material with potential to improve the production of light emitting/transmitting electronic devices has been developed in Japan by Nitto Denko Corporation.
The new thermosetting polymer has a refractive index of 1·76 - which Nitto Denko says is the highest of any polymer - and this can be further increased through the addition of nanoparticles of titania, zirconia and other metal oxides. The present refractive index is already 10 - 15 per cent higher than could be achieved before, and the company has developed a prototype material loaded with titania which has a refractive index of 2·10.
The desirability of a high refractive index relates to the control of the light in devices for which this material is intended. As an element coating material for LEDs Nitto Denko expects it to improve the light emission and reception efficiency of white LEDs ('the light of the 21st century') and quotes an improvement of around 30 per cent in efficiency; it will improve the performance of anti-reflective films used in LCD and other display devices; and using it to make microlenses for CCDs will increase the amount of light received, enabling the design of highly sensitive and high-definition CCDs.
The company says it will also lead to thinner lenses, with a consequent reduction in the size of equipment using them, and as the efficiency of the opto-electrics will improve, their power consumption could be lowered.
As it is a thermoset, the new material will also be heat-resisting in use.
Omnexus e-commerce bubble bursts November 18, 2003
Internet trading of plastics materials through Omnexus is to finish. The company is planning to close its transactional platform at the end of this month, because the levels of business were not sufficient.
Omnexus was set up by Bayer, BASF, Dow, DuPont, and Ticona more than three years ago as an injection moulding site which would be used to trade, not just materials, but also machinery, moulds, maintenance supplies, packaging materials and related services, and attracted its first equipment supplier a year later. Today Omnexus lists a dozen injection moulding machine manufacturers as members, alongside 16 materials suppliers.
Omnexus is recommending its members should join the materials trading site Elemica - of which which many of the Omnexus materials companies are already members - and plans to wind up the company by the end of the year. Talks are in progress to sell the e-marketing arm of Omnexus, but no-one has so far expressed interest in taking over the e-trading business.
DuPont names the day for quitting the mainstream fibres market November 18, 2003
DuPont has finally tied the knot with Koch Industries for the sale of Invista, the former DuPont Textiles & Interiors fibres operation. Koch will pay $4·4 billion in cash to add Invista to the operations of its KED Fiber Ltd and KED Fiber LLC subsidiaries. The transaction is expected to be completed in the first half of next year.
The deal puts DuPont's nylon and spandex fibres business alongside Koch's polyester fibres. DuPont chairman and CEO Chad Holliday described it as 'one of the most significant changes in our 201-year history'.
DuPont is not entirely out of fibres. Those operations not included in the mainstream Textiles & Interiors business were incorporated in other DuPont operations when the company restructured early last year.
Cut price imports force Degussa to cut blacks capacity November 18, 2003
Degussa is planning to close two of the carbon black lines at its Kalscheuren plant near Cologne, Germany, as a further step in reducing its capacity, following the closure of the Ambés plant in France at the end of last year.
The company blames low-priced imports of rubber blacks, mainly from Russia and Egypt, and the rejection by European Union member states in March this year of a recommendation by the European Commission to impose dumping duties on those imports.
Degussa itself is looking at other markets, and says that the increasing investments in the rubber industry in Central and Eastern Europe have growing strategic importance. In 2000 Degussa bought a carbon black plant at Jaslo in Poland to supply this market.
BASF echoes third quarter disappointments November 18, 2003
One of the last of the major international chemicals companies to post its third quarter results, BASF reflected the trends shows by other companies with sales up, but not as much as they would have been because of currency effects and downward pressure on prices; earnings down substantially because of higher raw material costs; and a feeling that things were getting better, but not dramatically, and not enough to forecast other than that the fourth quarter and the whole of 2003 would be down on 2002.
Group sales rose 2·1 per cent from last year's Q3 sales to Eur 7·7 billion, pre-tax income fell 31·8 per cent to Eur 403 million before special items, and net income fell 51 per cent to Eur 120 million - although tax-free gains in 2002 were not repeated, pushing up the company's taxes for this year.
The year to date result is more positive: cumulative sales were Eur 24·8 billion - slightly more than in the same period in 2002. Excluding currency effects, sales would have amounted to Eur 26·7 billion, 10·2 per cent more than in 2002. At Eur 2·2 billion, pre-tax earnings before special items were 2·3 per cent lower than in 2002.
BASF's agricultural products and nutrition divisions were the best performers: others, including plastics, saw reduced income.
Earnings from polymers in the Bayer Group fell dramatically in the third quarter compared with the same period last year. Sales fell 5 per cent to Eur 2·46 billion because of price erosion and currency effects, but they returned a pre-tax loss of Eur 11 million compared with a profit last time of Eur 101 million, due to weak demand, high raw material costs and exchange rates.
This was in contrast to an overall group result of an 8·4 per cent drop in sales to Eur 6·83 billion (although allowing for portfolio and exchange rate effects sales in real terms rose 4·6 per cent). Pre-tax earnings were Eur 21 million. Comparisons with 2002 are misleading as the Eur 858 million figure for 2002 included the Eur 909 million proceeds of the Haarmann & Reiner sale, while this year's figure is depressed by special items. Bayer has settled on Eur 104 million as the quotable figure for this year, representing a 52·9 per cent increase of the 2002 third quarter, mainly due to higher earnings in HealthCare.
Fourth quarter figures are likely to be equally awry as Bayer is to revalue its assets following the decision to split its polymers business and hive it off with chemicals into a separate entity, and the effects of the revaluation will be charged to the fourth quarter.
The new polymers/chemicals company, which should float by 2005, is likely to have sales of Eur 5·6 billion, with resultant earnings of Eur 500 - 550 million based on this year's performance, a 10 per cent margin which CEO Werner Wenning described as withstanding comparison with the new company's competitors, and in terms of the current world economy 'very respectable'. After the split, the Bayer Group will be about 80 per cent of its present size, with some 94,500 employees and annual sales of about Eur 22 billion.
Commenting on the new structure at the announcement of the group's third quarter results, Mr Wenning said: 'We did not take this significant portfolio decision lightly. Parting from our chemicals business, and thus from many of our historical roots, represents a radical change for the company. It is one of the most important strategic decisions we have ever taken.'
BASF and Bayer to co-operate in Chinese polyurethane production November 11, 2003
BASF, Huntsman and their Chinese partners are to expand capacity for MDI and TDI, some of which will be sold to Bayer while its own Chinese MDI and TDI plants are being built.
The BASF/Huntsman syndicate has received approval from the Chinese authorities to optimize their planned integrated isocyanates complex at the Shanghai Chemical Industry Park to world-scale capacity. MDI capacity will be increased from 160,000 to 240,000 tonnes and TDI capacity from 130,000 to 160,000 tonnes, with work starting by the end of the year. The total project cost for the complex is about $1 billion, and it is expected to start commercial production by 2006.
The integrated isocyanates complex consists of three separate joint ventures: Shanghai Lianheng Isocyanate Co - a 240,000 tonnes crude MDI manufacturing plant including manufacturing facilities for the precursors aniline and nitrobenzene which will be built by BASF, Huntsman, Shanghai Chloro-Alkali Chemical Co, Shanghai Hua Yi Company, and Sinopec Shanghai Gao Qiao Petrochemical Corporation. Shanghai BASF Polyurethane Co - an MDI finishing plant and a 160,000 tonnes TDI plant with precursors nitric acid and dinitrotoluene to be built by BASF, Shanghai Hua Yi (Group) Company and Sinopec Shanghai Gao Qiao Petrochemical Corporation. Huntsman Polyurethanes Shanghai - An MDI finishing plant to be built by Huntsman and Shanghai Chloro-Alkali Chemical Co.
Bayer will be sourcing its MDI and TDI from the BASF/Huntsman syndicate while it builds two plants, scheduled for start-up in 2008 and 2009, at Caojing.
A facility for the production of polymeric and monomeric MDI from crude MDI is scheduled to be completed by 2006, along with additional logistics facilities, and the start of crude MDI production itself should begin in 2008 with an annual capacity of 230,000 tonnes.
A TDI plant with a capacity of 160,000 tonnes, is scheduled to become operational by 2009.
The market for polyurethanes in China is expected to grow at an annual rate of about 10 per cent over the next 12 years to become the largest in the world by 2015.
Another Innovene PP plant for China November 11, 2003
BP's Innovene gas phase polypropylene process is to be used to upgrade Sinopec Corporation's polypropylene complex at Beijing Yanhua Petrochemical Company in China.
The plant will produce homopolymers and random copolymers and will have an initial annual capacity of 120,000 tonnes.
Since 1996, BP has licensed four polypropylene plants in China, and in total has now licensed globally about 2·2 million tonnes of Innovene polypropylene capacity, of which 670,000 tonnes is now under construction.
More expensive flame retardants November 11, 2003
The worldwide price for a range of Great Lakes Chemical's brominated flame retardants is being increased by 10 per cent from December 7.
The materials affected include: CD-75 and SP-75 series hexabromocyclododecane (HBCD), BA-59P series tetrabromobisphenol A (TBBA) and PH-73FF series tribromophenol additives (TBP).
Kraton sold again November 10, 2003
The former Shell-owned thermoplastic elastomer business Kraton Polymers has been sold again, three years after Shell sold it to venture capital group Ripplewood Holdings of the USA.
Ripplewood put the company back on the market in July this year, and has now agreed to sell it to another American investment firm, Texas Pacific Group. The transaction has been valued at $770 million. Ripplewood did not reveal at the time it bought Kraton how much it had paid for it - although the price has been quoted elsewhere at $520 million - but says that its ownership, and now sale of the company, 'enabled us to earn an attractive return for our investors'.
Kraton's sales are in excess of $600 m annually, roughly the same figure that was put on sales when Ripplewood bought it.
Bayer to split up polymers business November 7, 2003
The continuing reorganisation - some may say break-up - of the Bayer Group started two years ago has taken another step. The company has today announced plans to split up its chemicals and polymers divisions - until now regarded as two of its four core operations alongside healthcare products and agrochemicals - and combine parts of them into a new publicly quoted company with a stock market flotation by early 2005.
This will leave Bayer with three core business groups, HealthCare, CropScience and MaterialScience. Into MaterialScience will go Bayer's market leading plastics activities in polyurethanes and polycarbonate, and two speciality chemicals businesses. The remaining 5,000 products of the chemicals and polymers businesses - including styrenics, Bayer's other semi-crystalline thermoplastics, rubber and rubber chemicals, and plastics additives including colorants, flame retardants and plasticisers - will go into the new company. Bayer rationalises that as these product areas, which were the least profitable for the company last year, will become the core businesses of the new company, they will receive a higher level of management resources than if they were non-core in a bigger Bayer. They are also likely to receive greater levels of investment than if they had remained within Bayer.
The new company is expected to have sales of around Eur 5·6 billion and a workforce of around 20,000 in 40 subsidiary companies in 20 countries.
Heading the new company will be Dr Axel Claus Heitmann, who is currently a member of the executive committee of Bayer Polymers and head of the Asia/Pacific region. In the early 1990s he worked in Britain, as manager of Bayer's Rubber Business Group's site at Bromsgrove.
Bohlin Instruments, which three years ago bought out its competitor in rheology measurement, Rosand Precision, has itself been bought by a major materials testing equipment company. It has been taken over by Malvern Instruments, a Spectris group company, which specialises in laboratory-based and in-process systems for particle characterisation. Bohlin's managing director Richard Hall has joined the Malvern Instruments board to head the rheology team.
PVC producers suffer third quarter losses November 7, 2003
Depressed prices for PVC in Europe throughout this year contributed to reduced profits at Solvay, EVC and Tessenderlo. According to EVC, market prices, which had seen a sharp fall through May and June, continued to fall during July but then started to recover in August and into September, ending the third quarter some 16·5 per cent above the June levels. Compared to the equivalent three months in 2002, market sales prices were approximately 19 per cent lower.
Solvay was the worst hit, with its Plastics Sector suffering a 71 per cent fall in profits in the third quarter. EVC maintained its third quarter operating loss on reduced turnover but recorded a small year to date operating loss compared with a profit in the first nine months of 2002. And at Tessenderlo, increased turnover in PVC in the first nine months was offset by higher raw material prices, resulting in a loss.
The 71 per cent drop in third quarter profits at Solvay's Plastics Sector helped cut year to date profits by 42 per cent. Much of the problem lay in European vinyl margins, but the company says price increases have been achieved latterly. Asian and South American vinyl activities 'posted satisfactory results'.
Solvay's Specialty Polymers suffered from lower volumes in some markets, such as telecommunications and electronics, and US/European exchange rate differences hit the company's fluorinated polymers. However, the company says that fluorinated fluids and elastomers and some high-performance polymers performed well, maintaining selling prices and keeping Specialty Polymers as a major contributor to the group's results.
In its Processing Sector Solvay achieved a third quarter result equivalent to that of 2002, but cumulative results for the first nine months were down 19 per cent. Inergy Automotive Systems (fuel systems) continued its volume growth, thanks to the growth of the Asian market and despite the reduction in volumes experienced by the main American and European car manufacturers. But its results were affected by the weakness of the US dollar and strong pressure on selling prices. Industrial Films and Pipelife (pipes and fittings) were affected by the global downturn, but the impact was lessened for pipes and fittings by the effect of restructuring measures and improvement in the product mix, and for industrial films, by the improved performance of some specialty applications, such as laminates and technical films.
Overall sales of the Solvay group for the first nine months of 2003 were Eur 5,685 million, down 5 per cent compared to the same period of 2002. Consolidated net income (Eur 297 million) was down 25 per cent compared to the very good first nine months of 2002 (Eur 396 million).
The lower selling prices for PVC pushed EVC's turnover down 9 per cent in the third quarter to Eur 240·8 million. Against this, continuing cost reductions and some lower raw material prices compared with the 2002 quarter lowered production costs by 8 per cent, and the company reduced its operating expenses by 35 per cent, arriving at an operating loss equivalent to that of the previous year at Eur 6.4 million for the quarter.
In the year to date EVC was plagued by raw material supply difficulties which affected sales and increased costs such that last year's Eur 2·5 million operating profit in the first nine months turned to a Eur 0·1 million loss. EVC calculates that its raw material supply difficulties cost it Eur 23 million, and is aiming to recover this loss from its insurers.
Tessenderlo, which makes PVC alongside other chemical interests, saw its first nine months sales rise 1·1 per cent, and net profit fall 42·8 per cent. It gives the main reasons for this dramatic drop in profits as a drop in feed phosphate prices, low PVC prices and the level of the dollar.
PVC turnover actually increased substantially, from Eur 208·2 million in the first nine months of last year to Eur 242·9 million. The company comments that volumes during the three summer months were 'unusually good'. But the erosion of margins by higher raw materials prices brought an operating loss 'substantially below the figure for the same period in 2002'.
Tessenderlo also makes pipes and profiles, and results from this side of its business 'improved markedly', partly from the price level of PVC and partly from more buoyant demand for pipes and profiles during the summer.
Trelleborg buys British rubber extruder November 7, 2003
Rubber extruder DJ Profiles has been sold by Epwin Group to Trelleborg of Sweden for an undisclosed sum. DJ Profiles, which was acquired by Epwin in 1996, makes rubber seals, tubing and cords for a wide number of markets from glazing to automotive industries. The sale reflects Epwin's strategy of focusing on its core activities in the uPVC and related extrusion businesses.
DJ Profiles will continue to operate from its Telford site and supply Epwin Group companies.
10 m Atlas slitter will be the biggest in China November 7, 2003
The first 10 m wide slitter/rewinder for plastic film to be installed in China will be supplied by Valmet Converting. Valmet says there are only three other slitter/rewinders of this width in the world, and its Atlas division has built all of them. One was installed in the United States in 1998, and the others were installed at two companies in Italy during the past two years.
The Chinese machine will be at the Anhui Guofeng Group in Hefei, Anhui Province, some 500 km north of Shanghai, and will process BOPP film. Anhui Guofeng is an existing Atlas customer, having installed a 6·8 m wide machine in 1996, which currently processes around 15,000 tonnes of BOPP film annually. The new slitter will eventually process a further 35,000 tonnes.
Atlas sold its first machine in China almost 20 years ago when plastic film production began to take off. This was a 3 m wide slitter but the majority of the Atlas primary slitters sold since then have been above 6 m wide. In the current wave of investment in polypropylene film production in China, Atlas is providing more than half of the film slitters at widths of 8 - 8·3 m.
Chinese boost for Brabender November 7, 2003
Materials handling specialist Brabender Technologie has also received a major order from China. GE Plastics China is equipping its compounding plant at Pan Yu in Guangdong province with 150 loss-in-weight feeders for bulk ingredient and liquid metering. As well as the feeders, Brabender is to supply the peripheral conveyors, valves, hoppers and steelwork.
Ingersoll-Rand sells water jet cutting interests November 7, 2003
The water jet cutting specialist ABB I-R Waterjet Systems has been restructured. Karolin Machine Tool of Stockholm, Sweden, has bought the 49 per cent of the company owned by Ingersoll-Rand, and is also to buy Ingersoll-Rand's American water jet business. Karolin's main business is in sheet metal working machines, precision grinding and polishing machines, pipe forming machines and related tools.
It's uphill, but Milacron's getting there November 7, 2003
Cost cutting measures and the implementation of lean manufacturing helped Milacron improve its margins and despite lower sales in the third quarter it reduced its pre-tax loss on continuing operations. The good news, however, was masked by comparisons with the 2002 third quarter when the company had one-off gains from divestitures, and charges this year for goodwill write-down in its mould technologies business. On sales slightly lower at $170 million (2002 $173 million) Milacron suffered a net loss of $67·7 million compared with the $14·5 million net profit of a year ago.
There were no spectacular gains or losses in its plastics machinery operations, either by technology or by geography. And the continuing restructuring is expected to bring the company close to break even in the fourth quarter on its operations, with sustained profitability from the second half of next year.
Polimoon completes Fibrenyle takeover November 7, 2003
Nordic packaging group Polimoon has bought British moulder Fibrenyle from Alcan, effective from the end of last month. The acquisition is seen to fit particularly well with Polimoon's interests in consumer and pharmaceutical packaging - the group is also involved in industrial packaging and the supply of components to the automotive and electronics industries.
Fibrenyle was established more than 50 years ago and has built up a business in rigid plastic containers for the food and beverage, cosmetics and pharmaceuticals, household and agrochemical markets using extrusion moulding, injection stretch blow moulding, injection moulding and injection blow moulding. It had a turnover of £60 million in 2002, and employs 640 people at four factories in Beccles, Norwich, Sutton-in-Ashfield and Thetford.
Fibrenyle became part of Alcan in 2000 when Alcan merged with Algroup Alusuisse, but Alcan decided to sell it earlier this year because it did not align well enough with the group's core businesses.
Polimoon was spun off from Dyno in 1999 and changed its name from Dynoplast to Polimoon the same year. It consists of 17 companies in 10 European countries. With the addition of Fibrenyle its turnover will be in excess of Eur 300 million with more than 2,300 employees.
Higher feedstock prices impact impact modifiers November 7, 2003
Rohm and Haas Plastics Additives is to increase the European price for its Paraloid MBS impact modifiers by 5 per cent, effective December 1, because of rising feedstock prices.
Borouge bolsters Borealis November 7, 2003
Borealis stayed in the black, just, in the third quarter, although it made a net loss in the first nine months. Sales were up in both the third quarter and the nine months period on higher volumes compared with 2002, but margins were squeezed and operating profits fell substantially, taking net profits with them.
The company says its third quarter net profit was positively impacted by encouraging results in Borouge, the joint venture between Borealis and the Abu Dhabi National Oil Company (ADNOC). The positive contribution from Borouge 'is driven by steady growth in Borstar polyethylene sales in the Middle East and Asia coupled with good operational performance'.
The headline figures in million Euro:
DuPont is to build a research and development centre in Shanghai, China. The $15 m facility is expected to open in 2005 and is intended to support growth in the Asia Pacific region.
This will be DuPont's third major research facility outside the USA - the others are in Japan and Switzerland - and overall the company has more than 75 R & D facilities with some 40 in the United States and 35 in 11 other countries.
Omya adds more Albemarle additives November 7, 2003
A European distribution agreement between Omya and Albemarle Corporation has led to Omya UK taking on distribution of Albemarle's Saytex/Pyro-chek brominated flame retardants and Ethanox/Ethaphos antioxidants in the UK from the first of this month. Omya UK will service most of Albemarle's customers here, with the exception of a small number of direct accounts.
The Saytex products will add to other flame retardants currently sold by Omya UK, including the Martinal and Magnifin ranges of non-halogen, mineral-based products made by Martinswerk, itself an Albemarle company.
Albemarle recently struck a deal with Atofina of France to buy Atofina's bromochemicals activities, including the Port-de-Bouc plant in France.
Oldham-based injection, compression and transfer toolmaker Mould Teknik Tools company has been rebranded as MTool to improve its market position. The company has capacity to build tools up to 2 tonnes in weight.
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