South Korea-based Tongsuh Petrochemical is planning to shut its No. 2 and No. 4 Acrylonitrile (ACN) plants for maintenance. The two plants located in Ulsan are likely to be shut in October 2013, a company official told fibre2fashion.
The maintenance work would take around one month to get completed, after which the plants would be restarted.
The No. 2 ACN plant has a production capacity of 70,000 mt/year, while the No. 4 ACN plant has a production capacity of 245,000 mt/year.
The official said the company does not have any plans to carryout maintenance at the No. 3 plant, which has an annual capacity to produce 245,000 mt of ACN. The No. 3 plant’s maintenance is scheduled for next year.
Established in 1969, Tongsuh Petrochemical Corp., Ltd. became South Korea' s first company to produce ACN. The company has contributed greatly to the development of Korea' s petrochemical industry.
Tongsuh Petrochemical is a wholly-owned subsidiary of Japan’s Asahi Kasei Corporation. Acrylonitrile is the key ingredient in acrylic fibers used to make clothing.
SOURCE Icis News
The first generation of electric cars arrived in the early days of last century, and died out largely because batteries couldn’t compete with gas tanks. The second generation arose largely in the last decade, led by Tesla, but while batteries have improved significantly over the last century, they’re still the limiting factor. Meanwhile, the economy of gasoline cars has also improved significantly, giving electric stiffer competition than the gas guzzlers of decades ago.
While the third generation of electrics will bring a number of improvements, the most important ones will address the pressing issue of power. There are a number of technologies that could, separately or together, finally make electric vehicles kick gas-powered cars off the playing field.
Inductive charging
Inductive charging allows a device – whether a smartphone or an electric car – to charge without a physical connection to a power source. Interestingly, nissan and Infinity will be among the first to offer it, even though Tesla has led pretty much every other aspect of electric vehicles since it launched in 2003. (This is especially unusual since one of the first demonstrationsof thistechnology on a car was with a Tesla Roadster, but apparently without much interest from Tesla.)
With 1,000 mile range, you wouldn’t have to worry about chargers much.
Qualcomm has a version of inductive charging, called Halo, designed for both parking spots and interstate highways. It requires close proximity, but not contact, which would still be a vast improvement over having to actually plug the car in. Part of the improvement is that the device could be completely buried, making it far more difficult to vandalize, or for inexperienced drivers to damage. In most cases, you simply park your car and any power your car consumes is either free (as an incentive to get you to park there, something a shopping center or retailer might do) or you’d get a bill at the end of the month for whatever you consumed.
Unless this technology was installed in roads, as Qualcomm is promoting, it wouldn’t solve the battery-life issue, but it would reduce the related problems, making charging far more transparent and reliable. However, there could be a problem with conflicting standards (a problem that already plagues the electric car industry) which could mean you’d have to look for a parking spot your car will function with and make in-street solutions unworkable. This might be what’s holding Tesla up. Right now, Tesla has a unique native charginf system far faster than the implemented standard, and I expect it wants to do the same thing initially for inductive chargers.
Lithium-air batteries
IBM and others are working on a promising technology called lithium air, which approachesthe energy density of a gas tank. There have been significant advances in metallurgy over the last several years making a battery based on lithium-air technology viable within a decade. If you can have the same energy capacity in a battery that only has to be the same size as a gas tank, and were to place it in the massive battery bank of a Tesla S, you likely could likely take that car’s range and quadruple it. With 1,000 mile range, you wouldn’t have to worry about chargers much. More likely, engineers would just use a smaller battery, ultimately making the car lighter and cheaper. Coupled with more prevalent chargers, this would be a game changer for the electric-car industry, and represents the potential for energy efficiency better than gas.
Supercapacitors and ultracapacitors
Supercapacitors and ultracapacitors are an alternative to batteries that is actually already being implemented in commercial vehicles. Capacitors are solid state, they have a nearly unlimited cycle life, and they can both charge and discharge thousands of times more quickly than a lithium-ion battery without damage. In a way, capacitors are to ordinary batteries what flash memory is when compared to magnetic hard disks. Initially flash performed far better, but was far more expensive than magnetic media. Even iPods initially had hard drives. But as flash dropped in price, it took over more and more of the market, and now magnetic drives are in the process of being phased out.
Unfortunately, capacitors are still at the beginning of that transition. Right now, they are just god awful expensive, they lose charge over time, and they have low energy density even when compared to batteries. This all makes them an unlikely near-term solution, but like flash, prices are expected to drop sharply, energy density should increase, and self-discharge rates (likely the biggest problem) will improve. Over time and they could sidestep the battery problem all together. However they’re alreadybeing used in hybrid configurations, where you can charge the capacitors fast, say in minutes, then they charge the batteries as you drive. This is a fascinating technology that I don’t think folks are looking at closely enough.
Where’s the next Tesla?
I’m not referring to Tesla the company, but Tesla the man. He was, until his mysterious and untimely death (apparently connected to a mystical death ray), working on broadcast power. Intel and others have been making great inroads into this lately, but they are still likely years away from getting this to work with personal electronics, and decades away from getting it to work with cars. But once developed, this would remove batteries as a problem forever and we’d live in an electric world. Granted, there are some health concerns that will have to be overcome: Although the idea of glowing in the dark could be kind of cool, we’ll need to get around the “death ray” part. In any case, I think broadcast power will herald the final, lasting generation of electric vehicles. If we move to something else after that, it won’t be electric, and most of us likely won’t be around.
SOURCE Digital trends
Nippon Shokubai will start selling heat-resistent electrolytes that help prevent the expansion of lithium ion batteries, with 100-ton-level shipments planned for 2015.
Fluorine is typically used as an electrolyte but turns into a gas at high temperatures, causing the battery to swell. Nippon Shokubai has developed a fluorine-based electrolyte that is less likely to gasify.
It began shipping the material on a trial basis last year, reportedly confirming that it reduces battery swelling by 40-50% compared with typical electrolytes. With inquiries from foreign and domestic battery makers increasing, the company will add production subcontractors and may also build its own plant. It is targeting annual sales of around 2 billion yen in 2015.
Amid growing concerns about battery safety in the wake of fires aboard Boeing Co.'s 787 passenger airliners, Nippon Shokubai sees an opportunity to grab a share of the market.
SOURCE Nikkei Report
Japan’s Asahi Kasei Co plans to shut both its Styrene monomer (SM) units in February 2014 for maintenance during the turnaround of its cracker, a company source said.
The company’s 320,000 tonne/year No.2 facility, located in Mizushima, is scheduled to shut in mid-February for a two-month maintenance.
Its 390,000 tonne/year No.3 unit at the same location is expected to be taken offline in late February and will likely restart in early April, the source added.
The company’s 150,000 tonne/year No. 1 SM plant was mothballed in 2007.
Other Japanese SM producers include Idemitsu Kosan, Denka and Nippon Steel Chemicals.
SOURCE Icis News
Shell Chemicals has declared a force majeure (FM) on supplies of Sturene monomer (SM) from its plant in the Netherlands. A Polymerupdate source in the Netherlands informed that the FM was declared effective July 8, 2013. The FM has been attributed to a technical glitch.
Located in Moerdijk, the Netherlands, the plant has a production capacity of 450,000 mt/year.
SOURCE PolymerUpdate
"This agreement to develop and market this promising new product highlights the increasing collaboration between FMC and Bayer CropScience and the success both companies have created in bringing new crop protection technologies to growers," said Mark Douglas , president, FMC Agricultural Solutions.
FMC will start product development and the registration process next year and expects to launch the product in the following two to three years. Financial terms were not disclosed.
About FMC Corporation
FMC Corporation is a diversified chemical company serving agricultural, industrial, environmental, and consumer markets globally for more than a century with innovative solutions, applications and quality products. In 2012, FMC had annual sales of approximately $3.7 billion . The company employs approximately 5,700 people throughout the world and operates its businesses in four segments: FMC Agricultural Solutions, FMC Health and Nutrition, FMC Minerals and FMC Peroxygens. For more information, visit www.fmc.com .
About Bayer CropScience
Bayer is a global enterprise with core competencies in the fields of health care, agriculture and high-tech materials. This year the company looks back on 150 years of working to fulfill its mission "Bayer: Science For A Better Life". Bayer CropScience, the subgroup of Bayer AG responsible for the agricultural business, has annual sales of EUR 8,383 million (2012) and is one of the world's leading innovative crop science companies in the areas of seeds, crop protection and non-agricultural pest control. The company offers an outstanding range of products including high valve seeds, innovative crop protection solutions based on chemical and biological modes of action as well as an extensive service backup for modern, sustainable agriculture. In the area of non-agricultural applications, Bayer CropScience has a broad portfolio of products and services to control pests from home and garden to forestry applications. The company has a global workforce of 20,800 and is represented in more than 120 countries. This and further news is available at: www.press.bayercropscience.com .
Forward-Looking Statement – FMC Corporation
Safe Harbor Statement under the Private Securities Act of 1995: Statements in this news release that are forward-looking statements are subject to various risks and uncertainties concerning specific factors described in FMC Corporation's 2012 Form 10-K and other SEC filings. Such information contained herein represents management's best judgment as of the date hereof based on information currently available. FMC Corporation does not intend to update this information and disclaims any legal obligation to the contrary. Historical information is not necessarily indicative of future performance.
Forward-Looking Statements – Bayer CropScience
This release may contain forward-looking statements based on current assumptions and forecasts made by Bayer Group or subgroup management. Various known and unknown risks, uncertainties and other factors could lead to material differences between the actual future results, financial situation, development or performance of the company and the estimates given here. These factors include those discussed in Bayer's public reports which are available on the Bayer website at www.bayer.com . The company assumes no liability whatsoever to update these forward-looking statements or to conform them to future events or developments.
SOURCE FMC Corporation
FMC Media Contact:Jim Fitzwater - 215.299.6633, FMC Investor Relations Contact: Andrew Sandifer - 215.299.6119; Bayer CropScience Media Contact: Utz Klages -- +49 2173 38-3125
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An increasingly weak European Butadiene (BD) market is leading some to question whether operators could restrict or even reduce cracker rates as BD sellers are faced with rising supplies and ever-weakening spot prices, some market sources said on Friday.
It would be highly unusual and a first if European cracker operating rates were to be reduced solely on the basis of BD weakness - demand for ethylene primarily drives cracker operating rates.
"It's a hugely complex situation, [but] BD is still only 5% of what comes off a cracker," a producer said.
"I don’t think crackers will be reduced - ethylene and propylene [demand] drives the cracker – C4’s will just have to deal with it,” a second producer said.
Both suggested that while the economics of producing a marginal tonne of BD might be unattractive, core business was "ticking over" and there was still a small margin on the recently settled july monthly contract price of €1,000/tonne ($1,299/tonne) FD (free delivered) NWE (northwest Europe).
However, a combination of factors, including improved rates over the past couple of months because of stronger polyethylene (PE) demand, the end of the maintenance season for both crackers and extraction units and increased capacities coming online in Asia, means some European BD producers are under severe pressure to accept weak spot levels in order to evacuate volumes and rebalance systems.
This is all during a time when demand remains soft.
The concern among some sources is that ethylene demand in July so far looks quite healthy and could potentially be supported by pre-buying activities should crude and cracker feedstock naphtha firm further. Consequently, operating rates could pick up a couple of percentage points.
“I think that the BD issue is going to be felt in the cracker operating rates in Europe,” a trader said, adding that the operators “will think twice before taking on additional C2 [ethylene] demand.”
Europe is structurally reliant on demand from Asia and the US. Spot export prices have fallen by 50% since April and are at a four-year low. Asian spot prices in particular continue to plummet and no one can see the end of the downturn.
“Where is the bottom?” a second producer said.
“It is ugly,” a trader said.
“[It will not] end in the next weeks I believe,” said another trader, adding: “[It’s] time to go on vacation and a long one.”
SOURCE Icis News
Arkema will enter into a three-week maintenance turnaround at its methyl methacrylate (MMA) plant in Rho, Italy, in August, a source at the French-headquartered specialty chemicals producer said on Friday. The regular planned turnaround is expected to begin in the first half of August, the source said.
Arkema has the capacity to produce 90,000 tonnes/year of MMA from its Rho facility.
SOURCE Icis News
German producer Evonik’s butadiene (BD) unit at Marl is on track to restart around 12 July following planned maintenance, a company source said on Friday. The unit, which has the capacity to produce 220,000 tonnes/year of BD, was taken off-line in mid-june.
The restart will signal the end of the European spring maintenance season.
Previous maintenance shutdowns have included the BD units at Moerdijk in the Netherlands (Shell), Wesseling in Germany (LyondellBasell) and Ravenna in Italy (Versalis).
Having this capacity back on-line is likely to add bearish pressure to a very weak market burdened by burgeoning supplies on the back of weak global demand.
SOURCE Icis News
SP Chemicals is in plans to start test runs at a new Styrene monomer (SM) plant in China.
A Polymerupdate source in China informed that test runs at the plant will begin in late July-early August 2013.
To be located in Jiangsu province, China, the plant has a production capacity of 320,000 mt/year.
SOURCE PolymerUpdate
Major European methyl methacrylate (MMA) producer Lucite International plans to be back online from its planned outage later in the month, a source from the company said on Friday.
Lucite International put its customers on sales control in June and the allocation will remain in force until 31 July, as previously communicated, the source said.
The company has the capacity to produce 200,000 tonnes/year of MMA from its Cassel site at Billingham, in Teesside, England.
SOURCE Icis News
Chandra Asri is in plans to start commercial operations at a new Butadiene extraction unit (BEU). A Polymerupdate source in Indonesia informed that the plant is planned to be started commercially by end-July 2013.
To be located in Cilegon, Indonesia, the plant has a Butadiene production capacity of 100,000 mt/year.
The plant will be operated by Petrokimia Butadiene Indonesia, a fully-owned subsidiary of Chandra Asri.
SOURCE PolymerUpdate
China’s Shandong Huamao New Materials Co plans to bring onstream its new 100,000 tonne/year Butadiene (BD) unit at Dongying in Shandong province in the second half of 2013, a company source said on Friday.
Construction of the unit, located at Dongying Port Economic Development Zone, started on 30 June, the source said without disclosing the financial details.
The unit is expected to come onstream in the second half of this year, but the specific start-up date depends on the construction process, the source added.
The BD output of the new unit will be mainly supplied to the company’s downstream 100,000 tonne/year styrene butadiene rubber (SBR) and 100,000 tonne/year butadiene rubber (BR) units located at the same site, the source said.
SOURCE Icis News
BASF,Cargill and Novozymes today announced the achievement of an important milestone in their joint development of technologies to produce Acrylic acid from renewable raw materials by successfully demonstrating the production of 3-hydroxypropionic acid (3-HP) in pilot scale.
3-HP is a renewable-based building block and one possible chemical precursor to Acrylic acid. The companies also have successfully established several technologies to dehydrate 3-HP to Acrylic acid at lab scale. This step in the process is critical since it is the foundation for production of Acrylic acid. In August 2012, BASF, Cargill and Novozymes announced their joint agreement to develop a process for the conversion of renewable raw materials into a 100 percent bio-based Acrylic acid.
3-HP is a potential key raw material for the production of bio-based Acrylic acid which is a precursor of superabsorbent polymers, said Teressa Szelest, Senior Vice President Global Hygiene Business at BASF. We still have a fair amount of work to do before the process is commercially ready, but this is a significant milestone and we are confident we can continue to the next level of scale-up for the entire process in 2014.
Acrylic acid is a high-volume chemical that feeds into a broad range of products. BASF is the world s largest producer of Acrylic acid and has substantial capabilities in its production and downstream processing. BASF plans initially to use the bio-based Acrylic acid to manufacture superabsorbent polymers that can soak up large amounts of liquid and are used mainly in baby diapers and other hygiene products. Presently, Acrylic acid is produced by the oxidation of propylene derived from the refining of crude oil.
The companies joint project team combines world-class expertise in biotechnology, renewable feedstock, industrial scale fermentation, and in developing new chemical processes.
Our three companies have assembled highly talented and experienced joint working teams for this project, said Jack Staloch, Vice President of Biotechnology R&D at Cargill. They ve moved with speed and intensity, and have demonstrated great progress toward accomplishing our goals.
We have reached an important milestone by producing 3-HP in pilot scale, said Rasmus Von Gottberg, Vice President of Corporate Development and Business Creation at Novozymes. We have shown that it is possible to make this key chemical building block from renewable raw materials in robust industrial conditions. Now the development work will continue towards commercialization.
SOURCE Mena Report
DATE : 2013-06-28
A slump in auto demand growth has occurred as substantial new butadiene, synthetic rubber and tyre capacities continue to come on stream
What goes up can quite often come crashing down, as is the case with China's butadiene (BD), synthetic rubber and auto tyre markets.
In 2009, in the midst of the Chinese government's huge economic stimulus programme designed to mitigate the domestic impact of the global financial crisis, production growth for autos was a staggering 48.3%, as demand growth also surged by more than 20%, according to auto industry sources. During that year, China also surpassed the US to become the world's biggest producer of autos.
And in 2010, production growth moderated only slightly to 33.8% as demand continued to surge, thanks to the lingering impact of the economic stimulus package.
This perhaps created the impression that China was entering a new era of sustained exceptionally high demand growth.
But ever since 2011, when Beijing began to put the shackles on an overheated economy, and the central and local governments started to introduce restrictions on ownership growth designed to deal with congestion and pollution problems, the market has endured a relative slump.
For instance, this year demand growth is expected to be below 10%, perhaps as little as 5%, say auto industry sources.
This moderation in growth is occurring as butadiene, synthetic rubber and tyre capacities continue to increase.
Meanwhile, natural rubber stocks are at record highs, leading to a slump in both natural and synthetic rubber pricing. Natural rubber can be substituted for the synthetic rubbers styrene butadiene rubber (SBR) and polybutadiene rubber (PBR) in tyre production.
As we move further upstream, China's butadiene market has been mainly weak since February, according to both producers and traders.
There was a brief rebound in pricing from late April until early May, but as this article went to press, domestic pricing had once again retreated.
NEW RUBBER CAPACITIES
"Confidence is very low at the moment because of the state of the economy," said a butadiene industry source. "This has caused a reduction in speculative trading in butadiene. Speculation had surged because of huge margins, but because demand has been weak for a long time now, many traders have retreated".
This slump in confidence has occurred as new synthetic-rubber capacities have come on stream.
For example, Sinopec Maoming started up a 100,000 tonne/year PBR plant at Maoming, in Guangdong province, in late February. And the Transfar Group commissioned another 100,000 tonne/year PBR facility - this time at Jiaxing, Zhejiang province - in late April.
YPC-GPRO (Nanjing) Rubber Company started up a 100,000 tonne/year PBR plant at Nanjing in Jiangsu province on 1 June.
Not surprisingly, this has led to a surge in synthetic rubber stocks. Market sources estimate total inventories of SBR and PBR (it is difficult to estimate the stocks of each of the different rubbers) at between 200,000 and 250,000 tonnes. Last year stocks were thought to total less than 180,000 tonnes.
It is the same story in natural rubber. The problem dates back to around 2003, when there was a big increase in rubber tree planting in southeast Asia because the consensus was that the market would remain tight.
Instead, natural rubber swung into severe oversupply from 2011.
Inventories of natural rubber in Qingdao bonded warehouses in Shandong province are estimated to total around 350,000 tonnes, the equivalent of one month's consumption. Shandong is China's main tyre producing region. For most of 2012, stocks were around 250,000 tonnes, and before the global financial crisis in 2008 they averaged less than 150,000 tonnes.
What changed postcrisis - and this also applies to most chemicals and polymers, including butadiene and synthetic rubber - is that there was a huge increase in speculation in natural rubber because of the big rise in the availability of bank lending.
But ever since April 2011, natural rubber prices on the Shanghai Futures Exchange, and thus physical prices, have been weak.
This is again the result of government efforts to cool the economy and the big rise in natural rubber supply.
As we go back upstream with butadiene, the good news is that the butene-1 and butene-2 feedstock needed to run a large amount of new on-purpose butadiene capacity in China has become very expensive.
This has limited the operating rate at on-purpose plants that have already come on stream to just 50% (see table for a full list of both new on-purpose butadiene capacities and those linked to liquids cracking).
Most butadiene in China, as is the case globally, is produced via liquids steam cracking, which produces "crude C4s" or C4s, described as C4s on the table. C4s are a co- or byproduct of steam cracking. Butadiene is extracted from the C4s stream.
There is another route to butadiene. Methyl tertiary butyl ether (MTBE), the gasoline octane and oxygenate booster, is first of all produced from methanol and isobutylene. Isobutylene is also part of the crude C4s stream from the cracker. Isobutylene is also extracted from steam cracker C4s streams and sent to MTBE plants.
MTBE plants also have co- or byproducts left over when their reaction process is complete: butene-1 and butene-2, collectively also called n-butene, as is again the case in our table. On-purpose butadiene is then produced from n-butenes, using the oxidative dehydrogenation process.
Shandong, as we mentioned, is a major tyre producing region. It is also the location of several MTBE plants, next to which these new on-purpose butadiene units have been built.
The problem for the new units, and hence the good news for butadiene supply, is that the alternative value of n-butene as a gasoline blend stock is very high. As a result, the on-purpose butadiene producers are finding it difficult to afford their raw materials, say butadiene market sources.
This has led to both the low operating rates at plants already on stream and speculation that other start-ups will be delayed.
NO CLARITY ON DEMAND
Further positive news is that very few new PBR and SBR plants are due on stream in China in 2014.
Lower operating rates are also expected at existing synthetic rubber plants in the second half of 2013.
Both of these factors might boost the health of the overall market.
But nobody is certain as to how China's auto tyre producers will fare in 2014. There is an equal lack of clarity over future autos demand growth.
Tyre makers enjoyed excellent margins in 2012, add the butadiene industry sources. But so far in 2013, they have been placed under intense pressure by distributors, who are eager to drive tyre prices down.
A major outlet for the big tyre manufacturers is the export market. However, small and medium-sized manufacturers are finding it harder to export and so are more exposed to the weak domestic market.
As for future growth in auto ownership, many analysts assume that as domestic growth replaces investment and export-driven growth, thanks to economic rebalancing, the prospects are fantastic.
But Hou Yankun, head of China Equity Research and head of Asia Autos at UBS Securities, told the China Daily in a 29 May article that 2013 will be the last year of a major sales surge in Chinese autos.
"Theoretically speaking, if car affordability continues to follow the examples of Japan and South Korea, sales could maintain rapid growth for at least 10 years in China," wrote the newspaper.
"But Hou said the ability of the country's roads to cope with that level of growth is already being stretched," according to the paper.
"Data show that there are about 550 cars for every kilometre in Beijing, compared to 300 even in packed Hong Kong."
The average annual mileage of cars in the mainland is five times that of Hong Kong, added Hou.
"'It will be a challenge for the government to raise the speed of road construction to keep pace with the acceleration of auto ownership,'" he said.
"Mega-cities including Beijing and Guangzhou have already introduced car-purchasing restrictions, and people in Shanghai have to enter an auction for car licenses because of massive demand.
"Statistics show cities such as Fuzhou, Tianjin, and Nanjing are all suffering from low average driving speeds caused by chronic traffic congestion, which may force the local governments to consider [further] purchasing restrictions, Hou said."
And in a June 2012 report, Citibank wrote, "Interestingly, although (auto) ownership penetration in China remains low, at 60 cars per 1,000 drivers, annual sales have doubled since FY09 [financial year 2009] to around 24 per 1,000 drivers.
"This is similar to Brazil levels, and compares with around 40 in Europe or Japan.
"Given development variance between China's east and west, this suggests China eastern annualised sales per 1,000 drivers are getting very close to Western levels already - even if the fleet remains small relative to the population."
SOURCE Icis News