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DATE : 2015-10-23

China’s Jiangsu Sinopec Lianyungang’s new methyl methacrylate (MMA) plant is expected to begin commercial operations soon, market sources said on the sidelines of the 5th China International MMA Industry Chain Summit Forum in Wuxi.

The MMA plant located in Jiangsu province with a capacity of 100,000 tonnes/year was originally meant to start up in October, has now been postponed to November at the earliest, market sources said.

SOURCE Icis News

DATE : 2015-10-12

Daljeet Singh Kohli of India Nivesh Securities told CNBC-TV18, "Camlin Fine Sciences is actually a story for two to three years. The chemicals that they make, they hardly have any competition in India. There is only one major company which is called Rhodia that is major competitor to them. They are into food preservative products basically, hydroquinone. One and half years back, they bought a company called Boehringer in Europe which actually gave them this technology and that was the game changer for the company.""The trigger pint is also coming from there only because of that technology now being available, the company is going for an expansion in Dahej for which the project has started which will come up in second half of FY18 and then full ramp up will happen in FY19. They have to import everything from this European subsidy. As a result, 55 percent of the European subsidiaries business is internally consumed.

So, it is not showing up in the numbers," he said."Both these triggers will work in FY'18. Now from here till FY'18, the trigger will be the launch of new products. They have something like 30 odd products in the pipeline which will keep on coming like four or five products which are already in the trial stage. They have already started giving it out to the customers. They will try for the next three to six months. So, those numbers will start coming in. So, there are a few continuous triggers till three years and then in the next three years, there is a big trigger which will be from the new facility. Once that comes in, from FY'17 to FY'18, revenue growth projection for our model is 50 percent and from FY'19, it will be another 50 percent. So, that means, in FY18-FY19, from current level, we will be at least three to four times higher. So, that is the difference the new project will make.""In terms of valuation, there is actually no comparable, but if you still compare with other chemical companies, you will find that this actually has a return equity of almost 20-25 percent and return on capital of almost 30 percent but still trading at half the valuation. We believe that once those numbers will start coming in, there will be more visibility, this gap will narrow down. Therefore, the stock can actually appreciate to a much larger extent. As of now, for FY'17, we have given a target of Rs 136, but this can be definitely revised upwards," he added.

SOURCE Money Control

DATE : 2014-09-03

For years, battery technology startups and researchers have been striving to create a rechargeable, grid-scale energy storage system using zinc, one of the world’s cheapest and most plentiful metals. Zinc-based batteries tend to break down after just hundreds of charge-discharge cycles, however -- and coming up with new technology innovations to overcome this remains a challenge. 

Take the example of ViZn Energy Systems, a startup with a zinc-iron flow battery it’s now putting to the test in grid-scale applications. For the past four years, ViZn (pronounced “vision”) has been busy turning a fundamental weakness of its alkaline-based electrolyte chemistry into a key advantage.

Founded in 2009 as Zinc Air Inc., the Columbia Falls, Mont.-based startup changed its name in September and launched its first commercial-scaleproduct, an 80-kilowatt, 160-kilowatt-hour zinc redox flow battery housed in a 20-foot shipping container. It also announced its first deployment with BlueSky Energy for an Austrian microgrid project, aimed at storing and balancing on-site solar generation.

In March, ViZn announced that Kalispell, Mont.-based utility Flathead Electric Cooperative had installed a second system, meant to test a variety of grid support services. And this week, grid energy storage software and systems startup Greensmith named ViZn as one of the battery providers it’s working with at grid scale.

ViZn’s Z20 systems are targeting a price point of $800 per kilowatt-hour for microgrid systems, Kirk Plautz, vice president of sales, told me in a July interview. The company’s longer-term goal is to put together five of these containers in a 1-megawatt, 3 megawatt-hour system, the GS200, with a “clear path” to reducing those costs to about $450 per kilowatt-hour at scale, he said.

That’s on par with the costs being targeted by other flow battery competitors, whether they’re using vanadium (UniEnergy, Imergy andCellcube), iron-chromium (EnerVault) or zinc-bromine chemistries (Primus Power, ZBB, RedFlow). Flow batteries pump electrolyte through electrochemical cells, and thus can add more tanks of electrolyte to expand their energy capacity, something sealed batteries can’t do. They aren’t as efficient as the latest lithium-ion batteries, however, and can’t compete on how much power they're able to deliver at any one time.

One of ViZn’s key differentiators is its use of an alkaline, rather than acidic, electrolyte to get the job done, executive vice president Craig Wilkins told me. That alkaline chemistry, developed over the course of nearly a decade of research at Lockheed Martin, was aimed at avoiding the dendrite formation and subsequent failure common to acidic-based zinc battery chemistries, he said.

Instead of spiky dendrites, the alkaline electrolyte led to a  “clumping” of byproduct materials on the battery electrodes, he said. That in turn led to its own set of problems for cycle life in closed battery systems, ultimately prompting Lockheed to put the technology on hold.

But for flow batteries, this “clumping” had the unintended side effect of increasing the power density of the system, by increasing the surface area upon which electrochemical reactions could occur. That allows ViZn’s flow batteries to ramp up to higher power more quickly than many other flow batteries, while still retaining the multi-hour energy storage advantages the technology provides, he said.

“We leveraged this weakness in the chemistry,” through licensing of the core patents from Lockheed, Wilkins said. (The company’s board of advisors includes Roger Hollandsworth, who led much of Lockheed’s research into aqueous zinc redox batteries.) “Lockheed spent eight years and $10 million on the chemistry,” he said. “All we had to do is commercialize it.”

ViZn’s website notes that its “low-cost, non-acid” and low-temperature chemistry allows the use of inexpensive construction materials, and that it has built battery stacks with “proprietary elements to deal with the shunt issues historically afflicting flow batteries.” The company also claims the potential for 10,000 cycles and a 20-year lifespan, critical factors for investments that need to run for years in order to pay for themselves.

ViZn has raised about $20 million to date, mostly from private investors, which has allowed the company to deploy its first systems working with manufacturing partners like Semitool, the Kalispell, Mont.-based semiconductor chemical processing equipment maker bought by Applied Materials in 2009. ViZn’s new CEO Ron Van Dell told Bloomberg in July that the company is now seeking up to $25 million, with hopes of ramping up manufacturing capacity in late 2014 and early 2015.

To be sure, ViZn isn’t the only flow battery startup promising key improvements in chemistry, engineering and manufacturing processes. Nor is it the only contender promising a zinc-based grid storage alternative --startup Eos Energy is now testing its aqueous electrolyte zinc batteries, which it hopes to bring to market at a cost of $160 per kilowatt-hour.

California’s 1.3-gigawatt grid energy storage mandate is creating major new opportunities for batteries that can store energy for multiple hours at a time. Lithium-ion batteries are already providing power-centric grid services in projects around the world, and are starting to be deployed for multi-hour applications as well. But flow batteries are getting their own share of business for long-duration storage -- and adding some power density to the mix could allow them to provide both types of services, Wilkins noted. As with all grid-scale energy storage efforts, the proof will come in the real-world deployments.

SOURCE GreenTech Media

DATE : 2013-06-11

California has just taken a big step forward in making grid-scale energy storage on a truly massive scale a reality. On Monday, the California Public Utilities Commission released a proposal (PDF) that would call for the state’s big three investor-owned utilities to procure 1.3 gigawatts of energy storage by decade’s end, along with market mechanisms to start the procurement process as early as next year. 

The assigned commissioner ruling from CPUC Commissioner Carla J. Peterman is the result of a process that started in 2010 with the passage of California Assembly Bill 2514, the first state law calling for grid-scale energy storage. Last year, the CPUC took up the challenge of figuring out how much storage, in what forms, would meet the law’s goals, as well as how to incorporate it into the state’s existing energy and utility economic and regulatory structures.

Monday’s procurement targets go a long way toward defining those metrics, breaking down year-by-year targets for Pacific Gas & Electric, Southern California Edison and San Diego Gas & Electric across three categories -- transmission, distribution and customer-facing storage deployments -- meant to address a host of grid and energy management needs.

It also proposes a “reverse auction” market mechanism, similar to its Renewable Auction Mechanism (RAM) for wind, solar and other renewable power, to incorporate energy storage into the transmission and system-wide procurement and planning process, as well as new distribution system planning mechanisms and customer incentive programs. The first auction, to be held in June 2014, will ask the three IOUs to procure a collective 200 megawatts of storage, quite a bit more than what they’ve got today.

At the same time, it’s still a proposal, and the three utilities involved will be sure to be weighing in, as they have throughout the process. Let’s break down what’s at stake.

1) First, in terms of total megawatts, the CPUC’s proposal goes pretty far in establishing the state as a leader in energy storage for the grid -- and sets some pretty quick deadlines to meet as well. As the chart below indicates, the CPUC wants the state’s big three utilities to start procuring storage resources next year, and then keep increasing that amount by roughly one-third every two years, to meet its 2020 goals.

California Assembly Member Nancy Skinner (D-Berkeley), author of AB 2514, originally included a mandate that the state procure enough energy storage by 2020 to meet 5 percent of its average peak load. Measured against the state’s 2010 peak load of 47,350 megawatts (PDF), that would have added up to 2,367 megawatts of energy storage, or nearly twice the 2020 total of 1,325 megawatts that the CPUC’s proposal calls for.

Still, the state’s big three utilities have a lot of work to do to meet these goals. All three IOUs have but a fraction of the proposed amounts of energy storage they’ll need to procure in 2014, for example. Of course, because these mandates are for procurement of resources, that means that projects still on the drawing boards can count for biannual targets -- “Winning projects would be given a reasonable amount of time in which to be constructed and interconnected, but would not necessarily be complete before the next auction would take place,” Peterman wrote. 

2) There are plenty of energy storage projects of every description that will count toward the CPUC’s proposed targets. Commissioner Peterman lists a series of statewide storage projects that could be included under the “various mechanisms and proceedings” that the CPUC has “authorized or is considering authorizing…for commercialized energy storage projects.”

Those include many of the Department of Energy smart grid stimulus grant-backed projects underway in the state, such as Southern California Edison’s8-megawatt Tehachapi wind energy storage project and the Los Angeles Air Force Base’s electric vehicle-to-grid project; PG&E’s power purchase agreement with SolarReserve for a solar-thermal power projectincorporating molten salt energy storage;  and San Diego Gas & Electric’s Borrego Springs microgrid project’s community energy storage systems from S&C Electric (PDF) and parent company Sempra Energy’s general rate case proposal for 44.8 megawatts of energy storage for distribution system support.

It also includes various regulatory structures and mandates for energy storage in the state, including CPUC’s ruling earlier this year that asks SCE to procure 50 megawatts of storage-based capacity for the Los Angeles basin by 2020, or the up to 35 megawatts of energy storage projects under the existing self-generation incentive program (SGIP), which pays customers for on-site energy generation or storage.

Last week, the CPUC instituted a new program (PDF) that’s also included in Commissioner Peterman’s list. It’s called Permanent Load Shifting (PLS), and would provide $32 million in incentives of $875 per kilowatt, up to a maximum of $1.5 million per project, for storage systems that “permanently” move a building’s demand from hot afternoon peak times to other times. That could open up new revenue streams for thermal storage projects from the likes of CALMAC and Ice Energy, as well as other forms of storage. Under last week’s CPUC filing, the state’s big three utilities have 90 days to come up with plans to meet the new program requirements.

As for the host of other statewide grid energy storage projects funded by the California Energy Commission’s previous Public Interest Energy Research (PIER) program, as well as new projects under CEC’s EPIC program, “The primary purpose of both programs is technology development or demonstration, not commercial deployment,” Peterman write. “At this stage, I propose that any PIER- or EPIC-funded projects shall only count toward the procurement targets set in this proceeding if a load-serving entity subject to AB 2514 is a financial partner in the project, and the project reaches actual operations and can be shown to meet one of the three purposes set out here."

3) Market mechanisms will be a key part of what’s to come. “This ACR suggests procurement targets for energy storage with the goal of market transformation,” Commissioner Peterman wrote in Monday’s ruling. “The hoped-for result is that when the energy storage market becomes sustainable, procurement targets for storage will no longer be needed and it will compete to provide services alongside other types of resources.”

To get there, the CPUC is proposing different mechanisms across three broad categories of transmission-grid support, distribution system support, and customer-side storage deployments, as well as a list of 21 end uses for storage within different components of the grid, ranging from “black start” support and ancillary services for state grid operator Cal-ISO to outage mitigation and backup power for end users.

Each of those categories will also include different market mechanisms to incorporate energy storage’s capabilities into the state’s energy system. For transmission-scale storage, “I propose that the utilities hold a reverse auction, similar to the Commission’s Renewables Auction Mechanism (RAM),” Peterman writes. Under that plan, projects are able to bid their costs and be paid over the life of the contract, while future winning bid prices “adjust over time as the IOUs learn more about the projects, the storage market develops, and the Commission and the CAISO continue to assess the storage needs for the state.”

Monday’s proposal provides much less detail on mechanisms aimed specifically at distribution grid and customer energy storage, though it does mention “a requirement to include energy storage alternatives in distribution system planning” as part of its list of potential methods. California has set a 33 percent renewable energy target for 2020, and is looking to storage to help manage and mitigate the intermittent nature of that power, whether from massive wind farms or thousands of rooftop solar panels.

Praveen Kathpal, vice president of market and regulatory affairs for AES Energy Storage, the storage subsidiary of U.S. energy giant AES, said that Monday’s ruling leaves much yet to be worked out in how the program will run. “Whatever the right mechanism is will shake out in the stakeholder process,” he said in a Monday interview.

“At the end,” however, “one of those barriers that has inadvertently been erected over the years will be addressed,” he said. “There are established ways for utilities to procure power resources, and we’re just introducing storage into that equation.” AES serves California with both traditional (natural gas-fired) and renewable energy, and is watching developments on the energy storage front as well, Kathpal said.

Janice Lin, executive director of the California Energy Storage Alliance trade group, noted that Monday’s ruling also emphasizes that storage technologies must be cost-effective and commercially feasible. Of course, in the absence of rules and markets that can incorporate energy storage’s unique capabilities into the flow of energy and money across the state on a day-by-day, year-by-year basis, it’s been hard to prove whether or not that’s the case, she added. That’s something that the CPUC process is meant to help resolve, she said.

Meanwhile, there’s a whole universe of California energy storage projects that will want to be added to the mix. PG&E is building a DOE grant-backed, 300-megawatt, 10-hour compressed air energy storage (CAES) system in the Central Valley, and has several megawatt-scale storage projects using sodium-sulfur batteries from Japan’s NGK and power electronics and controls systems from Chicago-based S&C Electric Company. We’re also seeing distributed energy storage emerge in the state, with everything from backyard or garage batteries to backup solar installations (Tesla and SolarCity, Silent Power and Hanwha) to substation-scale grid balancing units in the 1-2 megawatt range (Greensmith and SDG&E), to name a few examples.

SOURCE GreenTech Media (Jeff St. John)

DATE : 2015-10-02

ALTIVIA Petrochemicals announced that it has signed a definitive agreement to acquire all of Haverhill Chemicals' assets for their Phenol, Acetone, Alpha-Methylstyrene (AMS) and BisPhenol-A (BPA) businesses. The facilities are located on the banks of the Ohio River in Haverhill, Ohio, formerly operated by Sunoco. Haverhill Chemicals filed for relief under Chapter 11 of the U.S. Bankruptcy Code on September 19. Closing of this transaction, which is subject to approval by the Bankruptcy Court, is expected in October.

The chemicals produced at the Haverhill facilities are intermediates utilized in the production of phenolic resins, epoxies, polycarbonates, paints and coatings, pharmaceuticals, acrylics, and heat resistant polymers.

According to ALTIVIA, entering this business will provide the company opportunities to participate in commodity products controlled by global players. The business' location provides a geographical advantage to the supply chain of its robust customer base.

SOURCE Chemicals & Chemistry

https://www.basf.com/en/company/news-and-media/news-releases/2015/10/p-15-353.ht ml

DATE : 2015-09-29

NuGene International, Inc. a developer, manufacturer and marketer of skin and hair care lines utilizing adipose derived human stem cells and stem cell media, was featured in a study and presentation by Dr. Dendy Engelman, a NuGene advisory board member and director of dermatological surgery at New York Medical College. According to the Global Industry Analysts, Inc. (GIA), the global market for skin lighteners is projected to reach $23 billion by 2020, driven by the desire among both women and men to have even-toned skin. With a proven alternative to hydroquinone, NuGene has a significant opportunity to impact this expanding market, according said Dr. Saeed Kharazmi, chairman and co-founder of NuGene.

Engelman's presentation titled, Potent Human Adipose Derived Stem Cell Treatments Revolutionizing Topical Anti-Aging Therapy, described a limited study performed to assess the efficacy of NuGene's Light and Bright Gel in improving the appearance of skin pigmentation. In the study, blinded investigators observed an improvement in skin pigmentation appearance with all patients where:

• 33% of patients experienced a 50% improvement in skin appearance
• 56% of patients experienced a 75% improvement in skin appearance

The subjects of the study were females between the ages of 30 to 60 years old, with hyperpigmentation on the face with moderate severity. The products used in the study featured NuGene's unique stem cell based technology employing a high concentration of bioactive molecules from stem cell culture media derived from human adipose stem cells.

In the study, the information was collected by an independent investigator who was provided with photographic evidence showing before and after images of the participants and concluded that there was significant improvement in the lack of the appearance of aging. Images of participants before and after the use of the product can be viewed here.

"NuGene's Light and Bright Gel provides an innovative approach to skin and hair rejuvenation. Clinical findings from topical application of NuGene's product yielded results, in my opinion, previously only attainable by in-office procedures. I have been overwhelmed by the efficacy of this product and am thrilled to offer this product line to my patients," remarked Engelman.

"Dr. Engelman presented NuGene's non-hydroquinone based solution for hyperpigmentation aesthetics to some of the world's top dermatologists and aestheticians. NuGene has a significant opportunity to impact this expanding market," said Dr. Saeed Kharazmi, Chairman and co-founder of NuGene. Hydroquinone, a common component of bleaching creams, has already been banned in Japan, the European Union, and Australia due to potential cancer concerns.

SOURCE Happi

Butadiene production in the second quarter of 2015 was reported to be approximately 346,000t -  an increase from the first quarter and better than the quarterly average in 2014. Butadiene output from US crackers increased due to a modest rise in propane, butane and naphtha cracking. The shift in cracker feedstock preference was somewhat seasonal as propane and butane demand drops and prices decline in the spring months; however, higher production from shale gas and the collapse of energy values over the past year have also added to the lower cost of LPG's. In fact, butane prices today are at the lowest levels since mid-2012.

Source: Dewitt August 19 2015

DATE : 2015-09-16

I took the opportunity of this announcement of LG to rephrase the estimated growth of acrylic acid and SAP :

August 19, 2015: LG Chem says it has completed expansion work on its acrylic acid and a super absorbent polymer (SAP) plants at Yeosu, South Korea.

The company announced the 320 billion South Korean won ($269.7 million) expansion at the end of 2013. The project raised acrylic acidcapacity from 350 kt/a to 510 kt/a and added 80 kt/a SAP capacity, bringing the total at Yeosu to 360 kt/a.

LG Chem, following the hike, ranks as the world’s fifth largest in acrylic acid and fourth-largest in SAP in capacity terms. The company forecasts an additional won300 billion in sales following the new investment.

LG Chem is planning to increase its acrylic acid and SAP-related salesby 600 billion won (US$504 million) or so to at least 1.7 trillion won (US$1.4 billion) by 2020. LG Chem forecasts the market for acrylic acid to grow from 4.9 mt/a last year to 6.7 mt/a by 2020, while that of SAP is estimated to increase from 2.3 mt/a to 3.4 mt/a during the next five years.

LG Chem had delved into the materials since the 1990s and came up with its own acrylic acid catalyst and production techniques in 2004 for the first time in Korea. At present, only a handful of companies such as BASF, Dow, NSCL, and Mitsubishi have their own processing techniques in this industry.

Last year, BASF and Sinopec have inaugurated two new plants for acrylic acid (160 kt/a) and SAP (60 kt/a) at their Verbund site, BASF-YPC Co., Ltd. in Nanjing, China to further strengthen the C3 (propylene) value chain. (see: BASF and Sinopec inaugurate acrylic acid and SAP plants in Nanjing, China)

In December 2013, Mitsubishi Chemical and SK Global Chemical, through a strategic alliance with, planned to build an acrylic acid plant at Ulsan, Korea by 2016. (see: SK Global to build acrylic acid and derivatives plants in Korea as part of portfolio diversification) The plant will be designed to produce 160 kt/a acrylic acid. SK is considering construction of a SAP plant using acrylic acid from the new plant.

Source: Solvya blog competitive intelligence blog from “Chemweek” and “BusinessKorea”

DATE : 2015-09-01

Evonik Industries has commenced new manufacturing plants for C4-based products in the Marl Chemical Park, Germany. This expansion of production in Marl is part of a capacity expansion throughout Europe for C4-based products, in which Evonik has invested a three-digit million Euro amount in total.

At the heart of the new plants at Evonik's largest site is the widely visible 90-meter column, the highest within the specialty chemicals company. This is a symbol of a new technology that, for the first time anywhere in the world, utilises special material streams from refineries for production of C4 chemicals. These streams are supplied by the neighbouring BP refinery in Gelsenkirchen.

Evonik is one of the leading global suppliers of C4-based products such as butadiene, MTBE, isobutene, 1-butene, and INA (isononanol) as well as 2-PH (2-propylheptanol) and DINP (diisononyl phthalate).

Klaus Engel, chairman of the executive board of Evonik, said, "With the expansion of our C4 capacitieswe are sustainably strengthening our market position. What's more, the new technology for raw material supply for the Marl plant and our excellent collaboration with BP demonstrate yet again the innovative strength of companies in the Ruhr district and their readiness to collaborate. We are confident, therefore, that there will continue to be a strong industrial base in the region."

In addition to the expansion in Marl, Evonik has also invested in the C4 activities in Antwerp, Belgium, where the plants in question went on stream in the second quarter of 2015. The new production facilities have resulted in capacity expansion for the plasticiser alcohol isononanol in Marl, butadiene in Antwerp, and the fuel additive MTBE in both Marl and Antwerp.

Johann-Caspar Gammelin, chairman of the Board of Management of Evonik Performance Materials GmbH, says: "Our investments are supporting the growth plans of our customers in Europe and worldwide. Market analyses show that global demand for these products is growing by up to 5 percent annually."

The Marl plant also marks a technological milestone for Evonik. Thanks to an entirely new process worldwide, FCC-C4 material streams can be used for production of a wider range of chemicals. "The new technology significantly expands our raw-material base. It gives us access to raw-material streams that have so far not been used for downstream chemical processing," explained Gammelin. The steam or naphtha cracker has so far been the major source for extraction of basic petrochemicals. However, there are significantly more FCC crackers than steam crackers worldwide.

FCC stands for fluid catalytic cracking. With the help of this process, refineries transform heavy crude oil components in fuel components. Fluid catalytic cracking produces a C4 material stream that, besides the components that can be used for chemical processing (olefins), contains further accompanying substances. The industry has therefore so far not used this FCCC4 material stream.

By developing its own new technologies and combining these with others procured externally, Evonik has now succeeded in utilising this material stream from the refinery. The main challenge here lay in separating any unwanted accompanying substances from the FCC-C4 stream. The new technology incorporates various chemical reactions and absorption techniques that allow an efficient yet flexible process. The 90-meter column removes the saturated compounds (butanes), which are of less interest toEvonik, from the FCC-C4 material stream, so that the more valuable unsaturated C4 compounds (butenes) can be further processed to specialty chemicals.

Innovation and collaboration in the Ruhr district Evonik draws the FCC-C4 material stream by pipeline from the refinery in Gelsenkirchen, about 15 km from the Marl site. Because the residual butanes are a valuable raw material for the Scholven refinery, Evonik returns these by pipeline to Gelsenkirchen where it is used as a raw material for the olefin plant. "The project that has now been implemented emphasises the significance of mineral oil processing for the supply chains of the chemical industry. It is a good example for a cross-company cooperation that strengthens competitiveness," says Frederic Baudry, member of the executive board of BP Europa SE and responsible for the petrochemical business of the company.

SOURCE ENA News Agency

Syngenta has announced that its succinate dehydrogenase inhibitor (SDHI) fungicide Solatenol (benzovindiflupyr) has received registration from Canada’s Pest Management Regulatory Agency (PMRA).

Benzovindiflupyr is reported to have a broad spectrum of activity against a number of foliar and soil dwelling pathogens, including rusts, Septoria spp., apple scab, powdery mildew, and Rhizoctoniaspp. In addition, the product reportedly benefits from efficacy at lower use rates compared to other SDHI fungicides, flexible application timing, tank-mix compatibility and the potential for use in resistance management strategies.

The active ingredient is expected to be available in Canada from the spring of 2016 in three new products: Aprovia, a solo formulation for use on pome fruits and blueberries; Elatus, with azoxystrobin for use on pulse crops such as lentils, chickpeas and field peas; and Trivapro with azoxystrobin and propiconazole for use on maize, soybeans and wheat.

Source:

PhillipsMcDougall

AgreWorld Daily Note - 02 September 2015

DATE : 2015-08-27

Germany-based chemicals producer Evonik has canceled plans to build a methyl methacrylate (MMA) plant in Alabama, the company said on Thursday.

Evonik had planned to construct a 120,000 tonne/year MMA facility in Mobile, Alabama. Announced in 2012, the plant was scheduled to come online in mid-2015.

As the target date passed, market sources said the company had delayed commencement of the project.

The company has now confirmed the project has been canceled following a strategic review. It did not provide further explanation.

The new facility was to be the first to utilize the company’s Aveneer production process, which is said to provide greater yields without the use of sulphuric acid.

Evonik currently operates an MMA facility in Fortier, Louisiana, with an annual production capacity of 150,000 tonnes/year, according to ICIS data. The company also has MMA plants in Germany and China.

MMA is a liquid monomer used primarily to produce resins and acrylic polymers. It is used in the production of acrylic sheeting and in surface coatings.

Major US producers of MMA include Arkema, Dow Chemical, Evonik and Lucite.

SOURCE Icis News

DATE : 2015-08-26

The force majeure on butyl acrylate (butyl-A) and 2-ethylhexyl acrylate (2-EHA) at French-based specialty chemicals producer Arkema is expected to be lifted imminently, a source from the company said on Wednesday.

The declaration at the Carling facility was made on 22 May, on the back of the force majeure on oxo-alcohols at Lavera a few days prior.

The force majeure on oxo-alcohols from the Lavera petrochemicals site has now been lifted, a second source from Arkema also confirmed on Wednesday. The source added that the situation is back to normal and the producer is now in a position to build stocks.

Arkema and INEOS Oxide operate a 50:50 joint venture in Lavera called Oxochimie. INEOS Oxide, which also declared force majeure earlier this year, was not available for a comment.

Oxochimie has the capacity to produce 160,000 tonnes/year of n-butanol, 20,000 tonnes/year of iso-butanol and 120,000 tonnes/year of 2-ethylhexanol at Lavera.

Acrylate esters include methyl acrylate (methyl-A), ethyl acrylate (ethyl-A), butyl-A and 2-EHA. They are used to make paints, coatings, textiles, adhesives, polishes and plastics.

SOURCE Icis News