AMERICAS

Albemarle completes sale of fine chems to Grace

WR Grace completed its previously announced $570m acquisition of Albemarle’s fine chemistry services (FCS) business, the US-based chemicals and catalysts company said. It includes operations in Tyrone, Pennsylvania, and South Haven, Michigan. With the acquisition, Grace expands the Pharma & Consumer subsegment of its Materials Technologies business. FCS adds a portfolio of products and services with complementary analytical, regulatory and manufacturing capabilities to Grace’s existing pharma portfolio focused on chromatographic resins, formulation excipients and drug delivery, pharmaceutical intermediates and active pharmaceutical ingredients.

Evergreen to buy 
PET recycling plant

US recycler Evergreen will acquire CarbonLite’s polyethylene terephthalate (PET) recycling facility in Riverside, California, for an undisclosed sum. The 220,000 square-foot Riverside facility houses both post-consumer PET bottle recycling and processing into food grade R-PET pellet, with capacity estimated at over 100m lbs/year of R-PET. The acquisition would give Evergreen a larger presence in North America, it said. Evergreen recently announced plans to double capacity at its R-PET plant in Clyde, Ohio, to over 80m lbs/year by mid-2022.

Canada’s Pembina to acquire Inter Pipeline

Pembina Pipeline agreed to acquire Inter Pipeline, creating an energy infrastructure and petrochemicals firm with a pro forma enterprise value of C$53bn. Pembina’s C$19.45/share bid values Inter Pipeline’s common shares at about C$8.3bn. The agreement between the two Canadian midstream energy companies comes after Inter Pipeline kept resisting a C$16.50/share hostile bid by Brookfield Infrastructure. The agreement with Pembina concludes a review of strategic alternatives that Inter Pipeline launched earlier this year.

Nexeo Plastics acquires distributor Nevicolor

US-based global thermoplastics resin distributor Nexeo Plastics acquired Italian thermoplastics distributor and compounder Nevicolor. Nexeo is an operating entity of GPC Companies, an affiliate of US investment company One Rock Capital Partners. Nevicolor, founded as a family business in Luzzara, Italy, 57 years ago, provides thermoplastic resins, compounds and application development services. Its products are used in industrial components, healthcare, automotive, advanced packaging, agriculture and electrical sectors. It offers over 3,000 grades of polymers, including recycled materials.

POET buys Flint Hills Resources ethanol assets

POET purchased the entirety of Flint Hills Resources ethanol assets, expanding POET’s ethanol production capabilities to 3bn gallons/year. POET, self-proclaimed as the world’s largest biofuels producer, expands its ethanol production by 40% with this purchase. It includes six bioprocessing facilities in Iowa and Nebraska and two terminals in Texas and Georgia. Financial details of the purchase were not disclosed. Ethanol is used as a gasoline blendstock, in pharmaceuticals, and in food and beverage applications, such as hand sanitizers and vodka.

Epsilyte buys EPS producer Polysource

US Epsilyte Holdings has acquired Polysource, a producer of compounded expandable polystyrene resin used in building insulation, personal safety equipment and filtration media. Financial details were not announced. Epsilyte will now operate two distinct business units, one of which will be known as “EPS,” made up of largely the Epsilyte business, and the other is the newly formed “Compounded EPS” unit, which will be made up of the Polysource business. Polysource, based in Piqua, Ohio, sells compounded EPS and moulded products to customers.

Vertellus to buy specialties firm IM Chemicals

US-based specialty chem producer Vertellus will acquire the chemicals intermediates and specialties division of ESIM Chemicals, IM Chemicals, which will expand its offerings in specialty chemicals and solutions, the company announced. Vertellus, based in Indianapolis, Indiana, has 10 manufacturing facilities located in the US, the UK, India and China. It was acquired in January by US investment firm Pritzker Private Capital. Vertellus provides specialty solutions used in the personal care, healthcare, coatings, transportation and food and agriculture markets.

US manufacturing PMI rises to 61.2% in May

Activity in the US manufacturing sector indicated an expansion of the economy and a half a percentage point increase from the April reading of 60.7% to 61.2%, according to the Institute for Supply Management (ISM), which said the May report notched a 12th consecutive month of growth, despite ongoing supply chain challenges, including record-long lead times, wide-scale shortages of critical materials, rising commodity prices, and difficulty transporting products. Panellists reported significant difficulties in attracting and retaining labour as demand remains high.

Heinz takes over as CEO of US-based BASF Corp

Michael Heinz took over as chairman and CEO of BASF Corp, the US-based North American affiliate of German chemical major BASF. He succeeds Wayne Smith. Heinz has been a member of BASF’s board of executive directors since 2011 and will continue in that role, in addition to leading the company’s North American activities. As part of his board duties, he is also responsible for BASF’s global Chemicals and Materials business segments, as well as the South America region.

US Apr construction spending increases 0.2%

US April construction spending was at an estimated seasonally adjusted annual rate of $1,524.2bn, up 0.2% from March, the US Census Bureau reported. Total April construction spending was up 9.8% from April 2020, which was during the first wave of coronavirus lockdowns. During the first four months of 2021, construction spending was $452.3bn, up 5.8% from the same period in 2020. The construction market is a key consumer of chemicals, driving demand for a wide variety of chemicals, resins and derivative products.

Lummus, Synthos mull bio-butadiene project

Lummus Technology and chemical producer Synthos are planning a feasibility study for a 20,000 tonne/year bio-butadiene plant. The study will form the basis for an investment decision. The project is part of a collaboration agreement between Lummus and Sythnos to commercialise “a novel technology to process renewable bio-based feedstocks to produce value-added, more sustainable synthetic rubbers”, said Lummus. Details about the plant’s expected costs or timelines for start-up were not disclosed.

BASF closes Illinois care chems site sale

BASF has completed the sale of its Kankakee, Illinois, US manufacturing site and associated businesses to private investor One Rock Capital Partners. First announced in December 2020, the deal includes the anionic surfactants, vegetable-based raw materials, and natural vitamin E production, with the newly independent entity to be known as Kensing, BASF said. The deal will see 190 employee move over to the new entity.

EUROPE

Eurozone chemicals producer prices rise

Chemicals producers selling prices in the eurozone rose more than 3% in April, statistics agency Eurostat said on 2 June, adding to months of healthy increases. The increases are in line with rises in inflation in the 19-country currency union, amid booming manufacturing activity those months, with shortages for many materials widespread and order books healthy. The price increases were generalised across the eurozone, and major producing countries were above 2%, month on month.

Evonik extends chairman Kullmann’s contract

Germany-based Evonik has extended board chairman Christian Kullmann’s contract. Kullmann has served as Evonik CEO and board chairman since May 2017, and the supervisory board has extended his contract until May 2027. This demonstrates Evonik’s strategic ambition to focus on its specialty chemicals output, with an emphasis on its innovation capabilities and increased sustainability to drive profitable growth. Since March 2020 he has also headed the German chemical industry association VCI.

LANXESS completes sale of leather chemicals

German specialty chemicals company LANXESS completed the sale of its organic leather chemicals business to TFL Ledertechnik. TFL, a portfolio company of Black Diamond Capital management, is a global supplier of leather chemicals. All relevant antitrust authorities have granted the necessary approvals for the transaction, which was announced in August 2020. The purchase price included €80m, with another payment of around €20m to be paid out in the third quarter.

Siegfried restarts ops after cyber attack

Swiss fine chemicals producer Siegfried has begun ramping up production following disruptions last week because of a cyber attack. Some sites have already resumed operations “to a certain extent”, and the others will follow in the next few days - including Hameln, Germany, which is important for vaccine filling, the company said in an update on 31 May. Based on its investigations into the attack so far, Siegfried currently assumes that sensitive customer information has not been compromised.

Construction materials shortage intensifies

Raw material procurement issues for the German construction sector intensified significantly in May, as supply chain bottlenecks brought on by the pace of the European economic rebound continued to tighten. The proportion of German building construction players that reported issues with sourcing materials on schedule reached 43.9%, a dramatic increase from 23.9% in April and 5.6% in March. Civil engineering firms saw similar issues, with 33.5% of respondents to a survey by German economic group Ifo reporting issues sourcing materials.

ASIA

BASF, Mitsui start study to promote chem recycling

BASF and Mitsui Chemicals have started a collaborative study to promote chemical recycling in Japan, the two firms said in a joint statement on 1 June. “BASF and Mitsui Chemicals will evaluate collaborative business models and various options to commercialise chemical recycling in Japan to address the local challenge of plastic waste recycling,” they said. From 2025, BASF aims to process 250,000 tonnes of recycled feedstock annually, replacing fossil fuel raw materials.

China polyolefins inventories down further

The combined polyethylene (PE) and polypropylene (PP) inventories of Chinese state-owned petrochemical giants Sinopec and PetroChina continued falling. On 28 May, the inventories stood at 670,000 tonnes, down by 8.8% from 21 May, according to market sources. The inventories were down by 5.0% compared with the same period in 2020.

China factory activity weakens, PMI slips to 51.0

China factory expansion slowed down in May and the official purchasing managers index (PMI) softened slightly to 51.0 from 51.1 in the previous month, data from the National Bureau of Statistics (NBS) showed. While production expansion has accelerated, demand growth has slowed down and the price index set new records in recent years, the NBS highlighted. The sub production index stood at 52.7 in May, up from April’s figure of 52.2.

Prime Polymer to build new PP plant at Ichihara

Prime Polymer Co is building a new 200,000 tonne/year polypropylene (PP) production facility at its production site in Ichihara, the Japanese producer said. Construction of the facility will start in August 2021, with operations slated to commence in November 2024, the company said in a statement. Financial details of the project were not disclosed.

Gulei Petrochemical targets cracker start-up

China’s Gulei Petrochemical is planning to start up its 800,000 tonne/year cracker in Fujian province on 28 July, a source familiar with the matter said. A Sinopec engineering company recently completed construction of the project and handed it over to Gulei Petrochemical. Construction of the facility kicked off back in March 2019.

Xinjiang Tianye plans ethanol, VCM project

China’s Xinjiang Tianye is planning to invest yuan (CNY) 2.3bn ($362m) to build a 250,000 tonne/year purified ethanol and 225,000 tonne/year vinyl chloride monomer (VCM) project at Shihezi in Xinjiang. It will set up a new wholly owned subsidiary to implement and operate the project. The company aims to extend its circular economy supply chain and further increase its product portfolio through the project.

China’s Shanghai Petrochemical hit by blast

An explosion hit Sinopec Shanghai Petrochemical’s complex in China on 29 May, injuring 14 people. The blast will likely keep the company’s cracker at the site partially shut for a longer period, market sources said. Preparation works for the restart of its 350,000 tonne/year ethylene and 200,000 tonne/year propylene production were being done when the blast occurred at a feedstock pipeline to one of the ethylene cracking furnaces at the site.

Malaysia PE grapples 
with reduced staffing

Polyethylene (PE) producers and plastic converters in Malaysia are grappling with reduced staff levels as the country starts a nationwide lockdown on 1 June to curb its soaring COVID-19 infection numbers. While the PE industry has been allowed to continue operations through the latest lockdown, staff levels have to be capped at 60% for both producers and downstream factories, in order to abide by the lockdown rules.

Mitsubishi Engineering Plastics to close POM unit

Japan’s Mitsubishi Engineering Plastics (MEP) will close its Yokkaichi polyacetal (POM) plant permanently by the end of September 2023, the company said. The Yokkaichi unit has a nameplate capacity of around 10,000 tonnes/year, according to a company source. MEP will focus production at its existing facility in Rayong, Thailand, due to better competitiveness and strong demand in the region.