January 21, 2016: Evonik Industries' venture capital arm hasinvested in Finnish startup company Synoste, in whichEvonik now holds a minority stake.
The investment was made as part of an A-series roundtogether with companies, including German High-Tech Gründerfonds, and Finnish venture capital funds Finnveraand Polish Lifeline Ventures.
The overall volume of the financing round is in the single-digit million-euro range.
Synoste, founded in 2012, is a spin-off of Finnish Aalto University. The company, together with Orton, a Polish hospital specialized in orthopedics, developed a high-tech implant for a minimally invasive treatment of leg-length discrepancy, which can lead to chronic back pain and osteoarthritis in the long term.
Evonik's Vestakeep-branded PEEK will be used in theimplant. Synoste is expected to launch the implant on themarket in 2017.
Evonik has multiplied movements in order to push forward itsPEEK portfolio and to increase its lead on Chinese competitors.
- Last November, Evonik expanded capacity for PEEK polymers in China which started in 2006. https://engage-solvay.jiveon.com/groups/blog-competitive-intelligence/blog/2015/ 11/16/evonik-to-expand-capacity-for-peek-polymers-in-china
- As mentioned in its 2014 annual report (p.10, more…),Evonik also worked on the development of PEEK particles which are able to deliver pharmaceutical actives (API) into the bloodstream.
Comparatively:
- Victrex, market leader, announced last December a £15 million investment in order to support identified “mega-programmes” notably in medical sector.
- Victrex: new investment of £15 million in PEEK facility to support identified ‘mega-programmes’ across the industrial and medical sectors.Arkema sold its PEKK medical business in June 2011 to the original founders of Oxford Performance Materials to consolidate its industrial activities.
Sources: Evonik, Chemweek. from Jerome Spiel in Solvay Blog Competitive Intelligence
Syngenta has announced that its succinate dehydrogenase inhibitor (SDHI) fungicide Solatenol (benzovindiflupyr) has received EU approval. Solatenol is reportedly effective against a number of diseases in cereal production, including Septoria spp. and rusts. The product will initially be made available for sale in France during the 2016 season, with Syngenta targeting a peak sales potential of $200 m. across Europe.
Solatenol has recently been approved in the USA (see AgreWorld 1stSeptember 2015) and Canada (see AgreWorld 2nd September 2015), and is anticipated for commercial launch in those regions this year.
Source: Phillips Mc Dougall
AgreWorld Daily Note - 08 January 2016
DATE : 201-01-08
To maintain profitability and earnings momentum, specialty chemical firms Camlin Fine Sciences Ltd and Vinati Organics Ltd are strengthening their cost leadership by building new facilities and entering new product categories.
Camlin is entering the food ingredients business. According to IndiaNivesh Securities Ltd, it has launched four new products.
The company is expanding facilities at Dahej, which, once completed, will help it attain scale, further lowering costs.
"Camlin's capacity expansion in Dahej-SEZ (special economic zone) should lead to a significant reduction in sales to raw material ratio," IndiaNivesh said in a note. "Further, Europe subsidiary selling Hydroquinone in the open market will result in high realization. As a result, the commencement of the Dahej facility would have two-ways margin expansion."
Vinati Organics is building a co-generation power plant and debottlenecking the existing facilities. Once operational, the power plant is estimated to lower the company's electricity expenses by up to Rs.8 crore per year, Motilal Oswal Securities Ltd said in a note.
"Debottlenecking of the existing capacities and new capacities for IB (Isobutylene)-based derivatives could contribute Rs.200 crore (25% of revenue in FY15) once they reach full utilization," Motilal Oswal adds.
After completion, the new facilities will help Camlin and Vinati Organics strengthen their competitive scenario and improve profitability.
"Vinati Organics is likely to maintain the margins above 28% during FY16E-FY17E, a margin expansion of 4% in comparison with FY15," Karvy Stock Broking Ltd said in a note.
That could help bring solace to investors.
Tracking the downtrend in commodities, the sales of both the companies slackened in the first half of the current fiscal year.
Camlin's consolidated sales are down 14% and Vinati Organics' by 24%. The companies use crude derivatives as raw materials and the falling crude prices lower sale prices. But the companies were able to maintain margins due to low raw material prices and control over costs.
The companies depend on exports for a significant part of their business. So, a deeper slowdown in the global economy can put pressure on sales and profitability.
While this risk increased in recent weeks, proof that new facilities are delivering intended benefits-sales and cost reduction-will provide support.
SOURCE HNMINT
DATE : 2015-12-22
Methyl methacrylate (MMA) supply in Europe could balance or tighten in 2016 compared with the length seen in the market in the latter half of 2015.
This will most likely be driven by reduced imports into Europe from Asia and the US, and will coincide with expectations of marginal growth for the MMA sector, underpinned by GDP growth forecasts of a few percentage points. Derivative demand for MMA, for example from the construction industry, is closely linked with GDP.
2015 supply was a tale of two parts.
Supply up until September was constrained because of production problems. From early autumn onwards, the market grew gradually longer as constraints eased, and imports progressively rose.
What is expected to change in 2016, however, is the abundance of supply. That is partly because the majority of Asian producers were running at full rates up until November this year. Since then, producers in Asia have opted to reduce run rates – in some cases to 60% of capacity - because of lower demand. As this is expected to continue in the new year, amid schedule turnarounds, this will have an impact on global supply – although the degree to which is not yet clear.
And the uncertainties do not stop there. Along with supply and demand unknowns, raw material cost evolution remains hazy, as does the exchange rate against the dollar and with some players expecting a year of volatility, there is a sense of unease.
There is talk that there could also be less volume coming in from the US compared with that which came in this year.
Europe is a net importer of MMA.
In a period of healthy demand, for example during the spring months, the market can tighten quickly if even just one plant is not running.
The year has ended with demand slowing as destocking measures are under way as normal. However, as coatings players began reducing stocks six months ago, and those from the plastics sector in October, the first quarter of 2016 is likely to start with slow, cautious, but decent demand as market participants look to replenish stocks.
Supply could be limited by February as one producer is set to begin plant maintenance, and that is expected to reduce supplies to the merchant market for a few months. While there are still likely to be imports from Asia compensating for lost domestic volume, this turnaround will also coincide with the Lunar New Year, after which Asian demand usually picks up.
The second quarter is typically the strongest as demand from the construction industry peaks, and as offtake from the coatings sector has a real pull on material.
Q3 supply and demand usually play out in largely the same way as Q2, followed by Q4 which tends to end slower because of winter demand and destocking.
Demand wise, the star for MMA in 2015 has been polymethyl methacrylate (PMMA). It will be interesting to see how this transpires next year.
The PMMA market in Europe is expecting stability to some slight growth in 2016.
Despite the positive outlook, because of the steep drop in upstream MMA prices in Q4, a decrease is widely expected for Q1 contract prices.
The continued growth of the derivative European automotive sector has fuelled growth in the market and has contributed to a strong performance in 2015 for European suppliers.
In October, the European automotive sector posted its 26th consecutive monthly increase in new car passenger registrations, according to the European Automobile Manufacturers Association (ACEA).
This equates to an 8.2% growth between January and October, or 11.5 million units.
With the key use of PMMA being taillights and headlights, any significant growth in the automotive sector has a direct impact on the market.
It is this sector that has contributed towards the expectations for growth, from both buyers and sellers, involved in the automotive sector, for 2016.
The main threat to this growth is the economic slowdown in China, which threatens to slowdown the growth in the automotive industry. A number of market participants in the PMMA view the situation in China as the biggest threat to the PMMA sector.
There were also some concerns about the impact of the Volkswagen (VW) diesel emissions scandal on the growth of the automotive sector.
For the PMMA industry there is a view that even if VW sales do decrease, buying interest will shift to another manufacturer.
The biggest concern was for tier-one automotive suppliers and suppliers to VW, who were being approached by the car-giant to recoup some of its loss from the scandal.
Some sectors, for example the extruded sheets sector, do not have the same positive outlooks, with Altuglas already announcing plans to close its PMMA extruded sheet business. It remains to be seen if there will be any further closures in this sector.
There could also be some pressure in 2016 with polycarbonate (PC) prices falling heavily in Q4 of 2015. If the gap between PMMA and PC closes this could cause some buyers to assess their options.
European producers are also expecting a continued growth in market share in 2016, which helped by the euro against the dollar exchange rate has been a driver for an increase in demand in 2015.
Supply is expected to remain balanced-to-long despite a presence of Asian imports in the market, noticeable for the second half of 2015.
SOURCE Icis News
DATE : 2015-12-22
Asahi Kasei is in plans to shut a styrene monomer (SM) plant permanently. A Polymerupdate source in Japan informed that the plant is expected to be mothballed in H2 February 2016. The exact reason behind the permanent shutdown could not be ascertained. Located in Mizushima, Japan, the plant has a production capacity of 320,000 mt/year.
SOURCE Polymer Update
DATE : 2015-12-28
Daljeet Singh Kohli, Head of Research at India Nivesh Securities told CNBC-TV18, "Camlin Fine Sciences is a story which is not just for 2016 calendar, but also for the next three to four years. Now, basic reason, one is that they are continuously increasing their product portfolio. They have already launched four or five products in the last year which were in trial run, so they will start adding to the numbers this year onwards.""Second, they had taken over a company in Europe which is become now their subsidiary, till now, they are importing everything from there, but with that company coming in, the hydroquinone, that has given them the technology to produce it.
Now, extending that same benefit, they are putting up a new plant in the Dahej which was will come up in 2018 and that, they will start producing all those same products here.""Now, the benefit will be the subsidiary will be free to sell the entire produce to the world market, so right now 60 percent of that is shown as internal consumption, that will go away. So, technically, their numbers will become very big in the year 2018 and 2019.""And third thing is that with the companies positioning itself into a lot of these value added products like Vanillin and things like SH Kelkar is doing, fragrances, etc. So, it is a bigger product basket than SH Kelkar available at much cheaper valuation makes sense to look at this stock. We have initially given a one year target as Rs 136, but this can be easily rolled over in the next years as well when this numbers come in," he added.
SOURCE Money Control