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Vita buys PU company and starts Slovakian plant construction December 16, 2004
Against a background of an anticipated reduction in profits from raw material prices 'more severe than expected' British Vita is continuing to expand with the purchase of a US-based polyurethane systems company and the building of an automotive headliner plant in Eastern Europe. The company has warned that its 2004 pre-tax profit is likely to be slightly below the £50·7 million of 2003. It expects to achieve this against margins reduced by record raw material prices through its rationalisation programme, the cost of which this year will be £5 m - £3 m more than in 2003.
The purchase of the US-based Synair business is in line with British Vita's aim to improve its margins by buying higher growth and profitability businesses. Synair Corporation, located in Chattanooga, Tennessee, USA also owns Chemical Innovations of Preston. Synair supplies polyurethane for 'flat-proofing' industrial tyres and urethane elastomers for a wide range of end use applications. Chemical Innovations (CIL - formerly known as Compounding Ingredients) makes rubber to metal bonding agents and also polyurethane elastomer systems and ancillary products. The polyurethane systems from the two companies align with those made by British Vita's Hyperlast subsidiary, and the Synair business is to be renamed Hyperlast North America. CIL will continue to operate as Chemical Innovations. Both businesses will be operated through Hyperlast.
British Vita is paying £14·7 m. Synair and CIL had combined sales in the year ended September 30, 2004 of $33 m and operating profit of $3·7 m. Net assets acquired amounted to $12·5 m.
As part of British Vita's continuing investment in Eastern Europe its French foam manufacturer Tramico has started construction of a factory in Slovakia. Work began at the greenfield site at Senec in late November and production of automotive headliners at the 5,500 m² plant is scheduled to start in summer 2005.
Tramico is market leader in automotive headliners in France, supplying Peugeot, Renault and Citroen. It has made headliners since 1982 at Brionne in France and Sabadell in Spain. Tramico is investing more than Eur 6 m in this plant which is intended to supply automotive companies who have opened production centres in Central and Eastern Europe with the expansion of the European Community.
PC producers plan materials cooperation December 16, 2004
Two major polycarbonate producers are planning to improve their production and marketing by sharing demand on a regional basis, each company supplying specific grades to the other. Teijin Chemicals of Japan and Bayer MaterialScience of Germany say the agreement would enable both companies to improve efficiency, enhance productivity and increase the availability of polycarbonate in the global market.
Teijin makes Panlite in Japan and Singapore, Bayer makes Makrolon in Germany, Belgium, the USA and Thailand. Both companies are building polycarbonate plants in China. Teijin is planning to start Panlite production in Jiaxing city, Zhejiang District in April 2005, and Bayer will start Makrolon production in the Shanghai Chemical Industry Park in mid-2006.
Shin-Etsu to invest $1 bn in US vinyls operation December 16, 2004
Japan's Shin-Etsu Chemical, the world's largest PVC producer, is to build its first integrated PVC production facilities in the USA, through its subsidiary Shintech. Until now Shintech has made only PVC resins.
The planned facilities include production of 450,000 per year of chlorine, 500,000 tonnes of caustic soda, 750,000 tonnes of vinyl chloride monomer, and 590,000 tonnes of PVC. The total investment is estimated to be approximately one billion US dollars.
The facilities will be built in two phases with the first phase planned for completion by the end of 2006. Phase two is planned to be completed by the end of 2007.
Two sites are currently under study, one in Louisiana and the other in Freeport, Texas. Shintech has existing PVC production plants in those areas.
Shin-Etsu is also evaluating options for building an ethylene production facility in the US.
Gabriel-Chemie buys Addcolour business December 16, 2004
The goodwill and stock of masterbatch producer Addcolour Plastics, which went into receivership in November, have been bought by Gabriel-Chemie UK, part of the Austrian compounds and masterbatch group. Addcolour's 5,000 m² Wigan plant is not part of the deal, and will be auctioned on February 8.
Addcolour managing director Don Bradshaw will continue in polymer trading as Addcolour Trading Ltd.
New top management at Perlos December 16, 2004
The managing director of the Perlos UK subsidiary in Sunderland is leaving the company after 12 years. Teemu Saloranta is moving back to Dublin with his family, and from January 1 the company will be managed overall by Keijo Riuttala who transfers from Perlos' telecommunications and electronics business unit. As he will be based in Finland, the operation of the UK company will be managed by Alisdair Watson who was appointed plant manager in October.
The UK plant was Perlos Corporation's first venture outside of Finland, being set up in Washington in 1985 and subsequently moving to Sunderland. Initial focus was on telecommunications, with the plant making phone casings and accessories for Nokia and Ericsson. But changes in consumer demand have brought a shift in emphasis and a restructure of the Sunderland plant with a multi-million pound investment in two clean rooms, to concentrate on pharmaceutical and healthcare. Keijo Riuttala is also responsible for the company's worldwide healthcare business.
IRD 'could save thousands of Euros' for bottle manufacturers December 16, 2004
The IRD - infrared dryer - built under license by UPM Machinery Sales is now being promoted to the PET bottle sector in addition to the PET sheet business where it has achieved much of its success so far. Don Cooper of Trendpam - UK agent for Aoki injection stretch blow moulding machines - has joined with UPM in promoting the concept for installation not only on new machines, but also to replace existing dryers on single- and two-stage machines already in operation. He reckons that it is possible to recycle in-house generated amorphous regrind and says that every 1,000 kg/week crystallised and dried using the IRD represents a saving of around Eur 60,000 in material costs per year.
The IRD passes material under an infrared radiator using a tumbling action, overcoming plug flow problems which can lead to inconsistencies in the final dryness of the material when using large drying hoppers. It is also faster than conventional dryers - UPM claims reductions in drying time from 6 hours to 8 minutes - with a resultant lowering of power consumption to 0·12 kW/kg/hour. A further benefit seen for the dryer is that it enables the use of virgin APET, saving around Eur 80/tonne on CPET. This can be combined with recycled PET flake, both the virgin and regrind being crystallised and dried in one pass.
UPM has installed a demonstration unit at its Langley, Buckinghamshire, base in a simulated blending environment, with moisture analysing equipment for potential customers to trial their own materials. The company is also planning to extend its manufacturing facilities for the IRD.
Rapid demand growth forces expansion of Antwerp MDI/aniline production December 16, 2004
BASF and Bayer are to invest in their MDI and aniline production facilities at Antwerp in Belgium to meet higher than expected demand. BASF is to expand capacity for MDI (methylene diphenyl diisocyanate) at Antwerp in the second quarter of next year to meet high demand from Europe and Asia. Capacity will go up 25 per cent from 360,000 to 450,000 tonnes.
The company is predicting annual growth of around 5 per cent over the next 10 years in the European polyurethanes market. European MDI demand averaged double-digit growth rates in 2003 and 2004 to reach 1·3 million tonnes.
This will be the plant's third capacity expansion in a short time. At the beginning of 2003 the original 230,000 tonnes capacity was increased to 320,000 tonnes, and then in the same year it was optimised to bring it up to 360,000 tonnes.
BASF also operates world-scale MDI plants in Geismar, Texas, USA, and Yeosu, Korea, and is involved in the building of an integrated world-scale production complex for MDI and TDI in Caojing, Shanghai, China, which is scheduled for completion in 2006.
Bayer MaterialScience is planning to expand its production of aniline, used in the manufacture of MDI. It is to build a new plant with a capacity of 50,000 tonnes using a new process which cuts investment and manufacturing costs. The plant should be completed in early 2006. Bayer already has a 140,000 tonnes aniline plant at its Antwerp site, which is to be expanded to 165,000 tonnes by the end of 2005. Investment in the two projects totals around Eur 20 million.
The increased aniline supply will fuel Bayer's growing MDI production in Europe - it has already announced its intention to expand capacities at plants in Tarragona, Spain and Brunsbüttel, Germany as well as at Baytown in the USA by a total of some 140,000 tonnes by 2006. This will give Bayer a global MDI capacity of more than a million tonnes.
Rapra plans five year growth December 16, 2004
Rapra Technology is planning to create more than 50 new jobs as it increases staffing by more than 40 per cent over the next five years. The research and technology organisation is investing in new activities and new markets in an endeavour to increase turnover by 50 per cent over the period.
Growth areas to be targeted include: environmental and recycling services, medical and pharmaceutical services, large research projects, regional support programmes in the UK and across Europe, product design,
and ad-hoc product testing. The company, originally an industry-funded research association, is currently focused on materials consultancy, testing, polymer analysis and processing services, as well as database, publishing, conference and training services.
Joint effort to produce new foamed material December 16, 2004
Arkema and Alveo are working together to develop foamed products made from polyether block amide. Arkema makes Pebax PEBA, and Alveo is a specialist in crosslinked polyolefin foams.
The new Pebaxfoam material is intended for a range of applications from insoles to grips, or from heel inserts to gaskets. It can be converted by traditional foam processing methods including lamination, thermoforming, adhesive coating, welding and die cutting.
Properties of Pebaxfoam include softness, light weight, thermal insulation, shape recovery, energy return, water vapour permeability, flexibility at low temperature, UV and ageing resistance, and high coefficient of friction. The material will be commercialised by Alveo.
DSM adds coating business December 16, 2004
DSM is to buy Avecia's NeoResins coating resins business for Eur 515 m. It will be added to the existing coating resins business within DSM's Performance Materials operation and restyled DSM NeoResins.
Schad plans to step down December 16, 2004
Robert Schad has set a time for his retirement from Husky Injection Molding Systems, the company he founded in a Toronto garage more than 50 years ago. He will step down as president and CEO within a year, although he will remain a director of the company. A committee has been set up to find a successor.
Robert Schad was born in Germany and arrived in Canada in the early 1950s with $25 in his pocket and a letter of reference from a family friend - Albert Einstein. He founded Husky in a garage in 1953 making a snowmobile called the Huskymobile. The Huskymobile did not succeed but the name remained with Robert Schad when he built a mould for making plastic coffee cups. The mould was capable of running faster than existing machines could, so in 1961 Husky designed and built its first injection moulding machine.
Today the company sells more than $800 million annually worth of injection moulding machines, robots, moulds and hot runner systems built worldwide.
Barlo finally becomes Quinn December 16, 2004
Barlo Plastics is to become Quinn Plastics on January 1 when it becomes fully integrated into its new owner, Ireland's Quinn Group. But the Barlo name isn't dead. Quinn will continue to use it as a prefix for the brand names of its sheet products.
Lanxess is to invest Eur 7 million on improving and expanding production of Baypren chloroprene rubber at Dormagen in Germany. The investment will bring new process control and an expansion in capacity to 80,000 tonnes. There will also be an increase in the plant's ability to package Baypren in PE bags to meet increasing demand for this form of shipment.
Lanxess has also earmarked Eur 40 m to invest in its butyl rubber business. This will increase capacity at its facilities in Canada and Belgium by 25 per cent in the next two years to meet average annual global growth predictions of 3 per cent in the period 2002 to 2008.
More functional polyolefins from Arkema December 16, 2004
Arkema is to increase production capacity for Orevac functional polyolefins at its Mont facility in France by 10,000 tonnes/year. Completion is expected in December 2005.
Orevac functional polyolefins are used as tie-layers for multilayer food packaging as well as in fuel tanks, pipe coating, heating pipes, halogen-free flame-retardant cables, and composites. Arkema has around 25 per cent of the European market.
BP to make LLDPE faster December 16, 2004
BP is to increase output of LLDPE from its Grangemouth plant to meet higher demand. This has been made possible by the adoption of a BP/Nova Chemicals catalyst, Novacat T, which has enabled the plant to run faster. BP's gas phase Innovene plant at Grangemouth has a capacity of 320,000 tonnes of hexene-based LLDPE. BP's refinery at Grangemouth, along with the refinery at Lavéra in France, is to be included in the polyolefin assets the company is planning to dispose of next year. The refineries at both sites are closely integrated with the neighbouring petrochemicals plants, and BP says that putting them into the disposals package 'will provide the new O & D company with secure and competitive feedstock and product optimisation flexibility'.
Basell embarks on second Saudi venture... December 16, 2004
Basell is joining with Sahara Petrochemical Company to build a polypropylene and propane dehydrogenation manufacturing complex at Al-Jubail Industrial City in the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia. The PP plant will have a capacity of 450,000 tonnes and will use Basell's Spherizone process. The plants are expected to start up at the end of 2007, with Basell selling the PP globally.
This is Basell's second project in the kingdom. It started Saudi Polyolefins Company as a joint venture with the National Petrochemical Industrialization Company (Tasnee Petrochemicals) at the beginning of this year.
... supplies technology for more Chinese PE... December 16, 2004
Basell's Lupotech T high pressure tubular reactor process for the production of LDPE homopolymers and EVA copolymers will be used in a 250,000 tonnes LDPE plant to be built by China Petroleum & Chemical Corporation (Sinopec) at Maoming in Guangdong province, China. Start up is scheduled to start up in 2007. This will be the sixth Lupotech T plant in China scheduled to start up over the next three years, with 1·3 million tonnes of new capacity coming on-stream.
...and grants first new generation Spherilene license December 16, 2004
Nizhnekamskneftekhim has selected Basell's Spherilene gas phase polyethylene technology for a 230,000 tonnes LLDPE/HDPE plant to be built in Nizhnekamsk, Republic of Tatarstan, Russia, with start-up planned for 2007. The new generation Spherilene process can produce the entire range of polyethylene products, including bimodal HDPE for film and pipe applications and the Nizhnekamskneftekhim license is the first granted for it.
PET producer buys plant builder December 16, 2004
Privately owned PET giant Mossi and Ghisolfi Group of Italy - the world's second largest producer of PET for packaging applications, with production capacity of 1·3 million tonnes - has bought PET plant builder Chemtex International from Mitsubishi Corporation. Chemtex is involved in engineering, procurement and construction management in the fields of polyester (fibres and polymers), refining, petrochemicals and specialty chemicals. It is headquartered in Wilmington, North Carolina, USA, and also has operations in India and China. Its share of polyester plant construction is estimated to be around 30 per cent globally and around 60 per cent in China for plants using imported technology.
Chemtex was the primary engineering contractor for M & G's ItalPET (Italy, 1997) and Altamira (Mexico, 2003) plants and will also build M & G's recently announced jumbo-line in South America. In the past, when M & G owned and operated a polyester solid state engineering company (Sinco; now owned by UOP), M & G and Chemtex cooperated as merchant engineering sellers.
sPS fails to make the grade December 16, 2004
Dow has abandoned its syndiotactic polystyrene product Questra. It stopped promoting it in mid-November, and will turn off the 36,000 tonne production plant at Schkopau in Germany in mid-2005. The plant will remain idle until a new use can be found for it.
Questra was introduced in 1997 as an engineering plastic derived from Dow's massive involvement in polystyrene commodity materials. It had high heat and moisture resistance with potential in the automotive, electrical and electronic markets. Questra was, in engineering polymer terms, relatively low priced making it competitive with most crystalline materials from PBT to high temperature nylons and LCPs. It was adopted for a number of niche applications, but just didn't make it into the wider engineering materials market that Dow needed.
Questra will be supplied to companies with products depending on it until a transition can be made into different materials.
Leadership change at Ferromatik Milacron December 16, 2004
Ferromatik Milacron's managing director Dr Michael Koch has left the company for personal reasons. His role is being filled temporarily by Milacron's president of global plastics machinery, Dr Karlheinz Bourdon.
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BP's refinery at Grangemouth, along with the refinery at Lavéra in France, is to be included in the polyolefin assets the company is planning to