DATE : 2016-05-27
China’s Huayu Rubber shut down its 100,000 tonne/year butadiene (BD) unit on 26 May because of weak market sentiment, a company source said on Friday.
The restart date has not been fixed yet, the source said.
The plant was restarted in late April after prolonged shutdown, according to an earlier story from ICIS.
The plant is located at Heze, eastern Shandong province.
Source Icis News
DATE : 2016-05-09
Synthos’s acquisition of INEOS Styrenics' expandable polystyrene (EPS) business is set to boost its overall styrene capacity by 76% to 600,000 tonnes/year from 340,000 tonnes/year, aninvestment bank said on Monday.
The €80m transaction, set to be concluded between Poland-based synthetic rubber producer Synthos and Switzerland-headquartered chemical major INEOS in the second half of this year, would potentially result in new annual revenue of zloty (Zl) 1.3bn (€293.5m) for the buyer, WOOD & Company added.
That revenue level would be attainable at the current EPS market price of €1,430/tonne and an 80% utilisation rate of the unit’s installations, said Maciej Wardejn, an analyst at the Prague-based bank.
WOOD roughly estimated the 2016 earnings before interest, tax, depreciation and amortisation (EBITDA) potential at Zl 65m.
Under the agreement subject to customary regulatory approval, INEOS Styrenics’ production facilities at Wingles and Ribecourt in northern France and Breda in the Netherlands will be transferred to Synthos.
Synthos currently produces EPS and PS at its Czech and Polish plants, with capacities standing at 210,000 tonnes/year of EPS and 130,000 tonnes/year of PS.
“The purchase price of €80m, or around Zl 350m, is close to [what we gave as our] estimated Synthos dividend payment of Zl 330m for 2015. We therefore see this acquisition as the chief reason for the suspension of the payout this year, and we do not see it as a threat to Synthos’ solvency,” said Wardejn.
Source Icis News
DATE : 2015-05-12
Arkema is in talks with partner Jurong about acquiring more acrylic acid capacity at the Taixing Sunke Chemicals joint venture in China, the company said on Wednesday, after declining an option to increase its stake in the venture earlier in the year.
Arkema decided against an option in early 2016 to invest €200m in the venture to access an additional 160,000 tonnes/year of capacity, but has continued discussions with Jurong about other options for the plant.
Under the new negotiations, which the company says may be concluded imminently, the two companies would agree a 50/50 split of the new capacity rights, the company said.
A deal would see Arkema acquire an additional 80,000 tonnes/year of acrylic acid capacity from the plant for a limited cash-out of around €40m, instead of paying €200m for 160,000 tonnes.
Arkema currently has access to 160,000 tonnes/year of acrylic acid from Taixing, located in China’s Jiangsu province, the capacity of one of the two acrylic acid product lines operational at the site whenArkema invested in the unit in early 2014.
The company had an option to acquire the output produced at a third line, which started up in 2015, but opted against it last January citing market conditions.
“As the financial terms of the option no longer reflect current market conditions for acrylics in China,Arkema has decided not to exercise this option,” the company said at the time.
CEO Thierry Le Henaff remained bearish on the project further into 2016.
“We considered the cost of the second line, [and] even if we could negotiate something a little bit improved… with the conditions of acrylics in China, looking at the economics, [it] was not something we wanted to do,” he said, speaking at a press conference in March.
Source Icis News
DATE : 2015-05-12
US acrylic acid and acrylic esters producers are expected to push hard for increases in May free-market contract values, but sources said on Wednesday that price talks are off to a slow and unclear start.
Each of the major domestic acrylates producers separately announced plans to increase freely negotiated May contract prices by 3-4 cents/lb ($66-88/tonne). None of the producers cited rationale, but most buyers say the initiatives are margin-improvement efforts since April feedstock propylene increased by only 1 cent/lb.
Before that, producers separately sought increases totalling 4-5 cents/lb during March and April despite the fact that March propylene increased by 1.5 cents/lb and dropped in February by 1.5 cents/lb. April contracts broadly settled below producers’ targets.
In the acrylates markets, the prior month’s propylene settlement typically sets the current month’s acrylates pricing in contracts tied to propylene, but also strongly influences current-month pricing in free-market negotiations.
April glacial acrylic acid (GAA) contract prices are in a range of 76-80 cents/lb FD (free delivered), as assessed by ICIS.
The quests for better margins - and some short-term pressure on 2-ethylhexyl acrylate (2-EHA), a source said - will put pressure on negotiated pricing because feedstock prices have risen for the last two months, even if only incrementally, a buyer said.
US May propylene contracts remain unsettled, with producers nominating a slight increase.
However, buyers are pushing for a propylene rollover or decrease because recent and near-term propylene restarts may lengthen supply.
For example, US-based Dow Chemical restarted its propane dehydrogenation (PDH) unit in Freeport, Texas, earlier this week after completing maintenance, the company confirmed.
One acrylates buyer said it has already negotiated some rollovers for 2-EHA and butyl acrylate (butyl-A), with formula-based prices rising on April propylene and natural gas input costs. Most contract negotiations are still under way, however.
Another buyer said it might choose imports if its US suppliers push hard for May increases. It said imported glacial acrylic acid (GAA), for example, could be had for about 2 cents/lb less than domestic product.
“I've been offered import material at very competitive price levels," a large buyer said. "Methyl acrylate (methyl-A) is more readily available via import than butyl-A or 2-EHA right now since several Asian producers are currently in turnarounds.”
Demand from adhesives, water treatment and super-absorbent polymer (SAP) markets was described as soft to typical for this time of year. The cyclical architectural coatings market was said to be better year on year, but not robust.
Also upstream, n-butanol (NBA) and 2-ethylhexanol (2-EH) oxo-alcohols markets, freely negotiated May contract talks were still in early stages, some sources said.
Seasonal demand improvement prompted talk that prices may increase, but by only a portion of the proposed 5 cents/lb, which surfaced despite the small increase in April propylene.
US acrylates producers include Arkema, Dow and BASF.
Source Icis News
DATE : 2016-05-05
South Korea's Hanwha Total Petrochemicals plans to expand its styrene monomer capacity by another 600,000 mt/year in 2018 by building a No. 3 plant at Daesan, a market source said Wednesday.
It already has the 400,000 mt/year No. 1 SM plant and 650,000 mt/year No. 2 unit at Daesan.
The expansion will make Hanwha Total the biggest SM producer in Asia, with a total nameplate capacity of more than 1.6 million mt/year, the source added.
Currently, Taiwan's Formosa Chemicals and Fibre Corp. with a capacity of 1.2 million mt/year is the largest SM producer.
By 2018, Hanwha Total will account for around 42% of South Korea's total capacity of around 4 million mt/year.
South Korean SM plays a major role in the Asian spot market, accounting for 19% of the region's total capacity.
China, the worlds top SM buyer, imported 33% of its annual SM requirement from South Korea in 2015, according to customs data.
SOURCE Platts