Plastic chemicals bioplastic crude oil 25-09-2018 - Arhive
-Polymers ACN Nylon Petrochemicals Prices
-Crude Oil Price Trend
-Iluna Group bags Interfeel’ Award at Interfiliere Shanghai24
The Iluna Group, involved in knitting, dyeing, or finishing warp knit fabrics, along with Roica by Asahi Kasei, has been named the winner of the fourth edition of the Interfeel’ Award in the sustainability category at the Interfiliere Shanghai expo. The textile exhibition will be held on September 26 and 27, 2018. Iluna Group will be present in booth 1C11.
At the Interfeel ’Awards, a selection of worldwide recognised professional of the intimates, swimwear, and sportswear industry reward the know-how and expertise in the textile industry. The Interfeel’ Award Sustainability recognise the continuous commitment of Iluna Group in researching smart materials and developing responsible innovation. The awards ceremony will take place on September 26, 2018 in the Central hall of SEC, Iluna said in a press release.
-Americas petrochemicals outlook, w/c Sep 24
US OLEFINS
US ethylene trade participants said they will continue monitoring feedstock ethane pricing, alongside reduced production rates this week. Spot ethylene prices peaked at 23 cents/lb last week as ethane rose to 61 cents/gal. By Friday though, ethylene spot levels came down to 19.25 cents/lb FD USG, alongside a decline in ethane prices. Meanwhile, Chevron Phillips Port Arthur, Texas, facility, remains on a 60-day turnaround, while Dow’s LHC #8 unit remains at reduced rates, sources said. Trade participants have also said they were expecting the recent increase in prices to impact September ethylene contracts.
-U of T startup that turns food waste into high-quality bio-plastic eyes next phase of growth
Luna Yu, founder and CEO of Genecis, completed her master’s degree at U of T Scarborough. Genecis is scaling up operations and looking at developing other materials from food waste (all photos by Don Campbell)
Luna Yu is passionate about not wasting food.
“I was taught at an early age by my grandparents never to waste food since it was throwing away the hard work of farmers and food producers,” says Yu, a recent graduate from the Master of Environmental Science program at the University of Toronto Scarborough.
“More than $1 trillion worth of food is wasted globally every year. What we’re able to do is take this waste and turn it into something of higher value.”
It’s no wonder that passion led Yu to team up with a talented group of scientists and engineers – many of whom are U of T students or recent graduates – to form Genecis. The company uses recent advancements in biotechnology, microbial engineering and machine learning to take food destined for the landfill and convert it into PHAs – a high-quality, fully biodegradable form of plastic.
Indorama Ventures’ world-class manufacturing and Loop’s state-of-the-art recycling technology combined to invest in multi-billion dollar sustainable PET resin and polyester market opportunity Indorama Ventures Loop Industries Polyester Recycling
Demand for supply of sustainable PET sees explosive growth from beverage and consumer packaged goods companies adopting significant circular and sustainable packaging targets
Indorama Ventures/Loop Industries partnership plan to begin production in Q1 2020
Indorama Ventures Public Company Limited (Bloomberg ticker IVL.TB), one of the world’s leading petrochemical companies, and Loop Industries, Inc. , a leading technology innovator in sustainable plastic resin and polyester today announced a joint venture to manufacture and commercialize sustainable polyester resin to meet the growing global demand from beverage and consumer packaged goods companies.
Mr. Aloke Lohia
-US-China trade war heightens as new tariffs on $260bn goods hit
The US-China trade war escalated as a third round of tariffs involving $260bn worth of goods was implemented on Monday, concerns for which have been rattling Asia’s equities and currency markets.
The US’ 10% tariffs on $200bn Chinese goods and China’s retaliatory 5-10% tariffs on $60bn US goods took effect at 04:01 GMT, barely three months since the trade war between the world’s two biggest economies officially started.
The US will raise the tariff rate on the products covered by the latest round to 25% by 1 January 2019.
In the first two rounds – on 6 July and 23 August – 25% tariffs were slapped on a total of $50bn worth of goods on each side.
-Crude oil futures higher on potential US sanctions on Venezuela
Singapore — Crude oil futures were higher in mid-morning trade in Asia Monday as the US signaled preparedness to ramp up pressure on the Maduro regime in Venezuela.
Register Now At 10:27 am Singapore time (0227 GMT), November ICE Brent crude futures were up 94 cents/b (1.19%) from Friday’s settle at $79.74/b, while the NYMEX October light sweet crude contract was 76 cents/b (1.07%) higher at $71.54/b.
Analysts said while US pressure on the regime of Nicolas Maduro would not include restrictions on US imports of Venezuelan crude oil, it could include new prohibitions on US light oil exports and refined product exports to Venezuela, S&P Global Platts reported.
US Secretary of State Michael Pompeo indicated Friday that the Trump administration was developing retaliatory measures against the Maduro regime.
-Should plastics be a source of energy?
The plastics crisis has some asking if we should burn more plastic waste and at least get energy out of it
In Rahway, N.J., near Route 1&9, looming cooling towers and a huge white smokestack dwarf the nearby car dealerships, fast-food joints, and motels. The installation is visible for miles and is a familiar landmark to the highway’s regulars, but likely few of them know what is going on inside.
The structure is the Union County Resource Recovery Facility, a waste-to-energy facility that Covanta operates on behalf of the local government. Instead of the usual coal or natural gas, it burns garbage to make electricity.
-Saudi Aramco Trading aims for 50 pct rise in oil trade volume in 2020
SINGAPORE, Sept 24 (Reuters) – Saudi’s Aramco Trading Company (ATC) expects to increase its oil trading volume to 6 million barrels per day (bpd) in 2020, 50 percent higher than current levels, the company’s top official said on Monday.
“Currently … we’re at 4 million barrels per day and with expansion I think our target is 6 million barrels per day,” President and Chief Executive Ibrahim Al-Buainain said at the Asia Pacific Petroleum Conference (APPEC).
-APPEC: Crude oil could go ‘north of $100/b’ because of supply uncertainty: Jaeggi
Singapore — Crude oil prices could surpass $100/b as the global oil market does not have an adequate supply response for about 2 million b/d of oil disappearing from the market, Daniel Jaeggi, co-founder of Mercuria, said Monday.
-‘Strength of economy, demographics drive nonwovens demand’24
The strength of the economy and demographic trends are the main drivers of demand within the nonwovens market, according to European Disposables and Nonwovens Association (EDANA) statistics. EDANA said that the capacity for nonwovens production has increased over the past few years by about 7 per cent per annum and will be even higher in the years to come.
-“This crisis is totally the fault of Erdogan but he blames America and people believe him.”
The cost of everything, from tomatoes to toys, from sugar to schoolbooks, is rapidly rising. Imported items have been hit the worst, thanks to a 40 percent slump in the value of the Turkish lira against the U.S. dollar since the start of the year.
“Bananas have risen the most,” said Emin Celekoglu, 30, a fruit seller. “Customers are choosing different things in order to keep their costs down.”
At the start of the year, he said, 100 lira would buy his weekly groceries and household supplies; now, the same basket of goods costs him 180-200 lira a week. But his income remains unchanged.
-Venezuela Can Wreck U.S.-Chinese Relations
When the New York Times earlier this month reported that President Trump had met with Venezuelan military officers unhappy with the country’s government to discuss a coup against Nicolas Maduro, some observers of the events in the South American country probably winced. The implications of a U.S. military intervention in Venezuela would be way too severe for comfort. In fact, it might aggravate an already regionally spreading crisis. Besides aggravating the crisis, any more severe blow to Venezuela might well put Washington at further odds with Beijing.
-Trade deals could be great opportunity in eurozone
The European economy looks like it will recover its footing in the second half of 2018 after a sluggish start to the year.
On net, the growth rates for developed European economies will lag the gains experienced by the less-developed countries in Eastern Europe, but they will still be in line with the longer-term average of the past 10 years.
-All systems automotive for Asahi Kasei
When a chemicals and fibre producer decides to build a concept car, it’s clear that some profound changes are imminent for the automotive industry, but then this is an era when, without any previous skin in the game, entrepreneurs like Tesla’s Elon Musk are in any case threatening to turn it on its head.
And Japan’s Asahi Kasei, of course, is a little more than a chemicals and fibre producer, with sales of €15.8 billion in 2017 across its three divisions – Materials, Homes and Healthcare – and employing 34,670 people globally at the end of March 2018.
-BLUE PET starts blowing petainerKegs
The first blown petainerKegs have started rolling off the production line at Petainer’s Brazilian partner BLUE PET’s factory in the south of Brazil.
The blow moulding plant in Tijucas, Santa Catarina serves the domestic market and will become the manufacturing hub for the South American region for the one-way PET kegs.
-RECYCLABILITY REVOLUTION IN HIGH-BARRIER FILMS
Amcor has set out to transform the circular capability of flexible packaging with the launch of a new polyolefin barrier film – a platform technology for packaging a huge variety of products. The culmination of several years’ R&D and a major step toward achieving Amcor’s pledge to develop all its packaging to be recyclable or reusable by 2025, this innovation appears to have reached the El Dorado of flexibles: a polyolefin-based substrate that can be used for ambient and retort high-barrier applications – and can be recycled. Amcor spoke exclusively about the launch with Packaging Europe’s Tim Sykes.
-OPEC: US shale oil plays major role until 2027
Tight oil sourced from shale plays located in the U.S. will continue to grab market share in the global supply market until 2027, according to OPEC.
Tight oil produced from the U.S. will drive non-OPEC oil supply increases expected until 2027. In the next 8 years, OPEC expects non-OPEC supply to increase by 9 million barrels per day. In its yearly world oil outlook report, OPEC outlined several key factors it expects will shape the global oil market all the way to 2040.
-LANXESS has announced it will focus on materials for new forms of mobility, at Fakuma 2018.
LANXESS expects the number of electric and electronic components in the automobile of the future to rise sharply.
The specialty chemicals company says it is also focusing on the possibility of replacing the currently expensive polyamide 66 with polyamide 6 and polybutylene terephthalate (PBT) compounds.
Polyamide 6 compounds instead of polyamide 66 compounds
LANXESS will be presenting its new Durethan Performance product range for the first time at Fakuma.
The polyamide 6 material grades are several times more resistant to fatigue under pulsating loads than standard products with the same glass fibre content.
-Europe LDPE spot below ethylene for first time since 2013
European low density polyethylene (LDPE) spot prices have slipped again and are now below those of feedstock ethylene for the first time since May 2013.
There are just a few euros difference between LDPE spot prices this month and those in May 2018, at their lowest point since March 2015.
Prices have fallen this week on the back of ample supply and reduced demand.
“There’s too much material in the market. Everybody wants to sell. It’s inevitable that prices are going down,” said one distributor.
-Why Crude Oil Could Spike to $100 Very Soon
U.S. sanctions on Iran are set to bite into supply soon, while OPEC and Russia are in no hurry to boost production.
The global crude oil market is reacting to the geopolitical uncertainty of further U.S. sanctions on Iran with a spike in prices. Brent crude, which has rallied almost $10/barrel since mid-August is currently at $80.80 a barrel. We think the recent rally is a market reaction rather than a major shift in supply/demand fundamentals. However, this reaction could drive prices close to $100 a barrel near term.
This comes at a point when President Trump has been blaming OPEC, though a tweet, for the recent rise in commodity prices. While Trump’s tweets have nothing to do with the increase in crude oil prices, they do come with a “fear factor,” something that Oman Oil Minister Mohammed Al Rumhy has called the “Washington Premium.”
-Unilever East Africa CEO Justin Apsey
Unilever has injected Sh30 million in Mr Green Africa in a pact that will see the plant’s collection centres rise from the current 25 to 100 across the country in two years.
Unilever reckons the venture will cut pollution and boost Kenya’s recycling business as part of its global plan to make the plastic it uses recyclable or reusable by 2025.
M Green Africa uses waste to manufacture products such as buckets and water tanks while Unilever’s products like Blue Band and Vaseline are packaged in plastics.
Consumer goods manufacturer Unilever East Africa has signed a partnership with a Nairobi-based plant to recycle plastic containers and cut pollution.
