ASIA NEWS NEW FACILITY
MTR technology used in a new plant for OCTAL
OCTAL Petrochemicals recently signed a contract with Uhde Inventa-Fischer to build a 550,000 tonne per year plant for the production of PET resin. The contract for delivery of two lines, unique to OCTAL, will use the state-ofthe-art melt-to-resin (MTR) technology DEMAND DROP
Decline in Asian naphtha prices amid surplus stock and dwindling demand The demand for Asian naphtha has dwindled, as Asia’s top spot naphtha buyer, Formosa Petrochemical Corp, did not issue a tender to seek the petrochemical feedstock ahead of a major cracker shutdown. As per ICIS, the spread between H2-October and H2-November contracts flipped to a contango of minus 50 cent/bbl,
EVENT
High performance thermoplastics conference in Singapore Following the successful conferences on high performance thermoplastics held in Singapore in 2006 and India in 2007, Chatsworth Hall has announced the latest conference to be held in Singapore in 2011. Engineering plastics are finding new applications in areas where traditional materials have always
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Modern Plastics & Polymers | October 2010
proprietary to Uhde Inventa-Fischer. The expansion to OCTAL’s existing capacity will be built at OCTAL’s existing PET complex in Salalah, Oman. This new plant will transform OCTAL into the largest packaging-grade PET manufacturer on one site. The first plant produces PET sheets and bottlegrade chips, which also use Uhde Inventa-Fischer’s MTR technology. MTR technology has considerable advantages in terms of quality, investment costs, raw material usage and utilities consumption, resulting in a significantly lower carbon footprint of the production. In addition, it offers other benefits in terms of cost savings, enhanced productivity and efficiency, which will provide a competitive edge to the company.
NOVEL TECHNOLOGY
Coal-to-olefins company in China sets up UNIPOL polypropylene plant The use of UNIPOL polypropylene (PP) technology from Dow Basic Plastics Licensing and Catalysts, a business group of Dow Chemical Company (Dow), continues to grow at a rapid pace in China. China Shenhua Coal to Liquid and Baotou Coal Chemical Company is the latest company to start up a plant using this technology and is the first in China to manufacture PP made from coal-generated olefins. According to the company, its gassification technology converts coal
and has remained at this level at the start of the week. The spread was valued at plus $ 2.50 per tonne in backwardation earlier this month. Backwardation refers to a market where spot prices are higher than future prices, representing strong demand for prompt cargoes. Contango refers to a market where spot prices are lower than future prices, signifying weak demand for prompt cargoes. H2-October naphtha crack spread against October ICE Brent crude futures weakened to $ 101.20 per tonne from $ 117.08 per tonne in early September. While the arbitrage window to ship European naphtha to Asia remained shut, the old cargoes of 100,000-150,000 tonne of Mediterranean naphtha, due to land in Asia in October, is faced with problems in securing buyers.
into a synthesis gas (or syngas); syngas is used to produce methanol, which is transformed into olefins – a building block for producing polypropylene. UNIPOL PP process technology is an all gas-phase process for producing the broadest range of polypropylene resins. Its simple design is consistent in product quality and energy efficiency, requiring no equipment for handling, separating or recycling solvents. The fluidised-bed reactors and high performance systems give manufacturers the flexibility to produce homopolymers, random co-polymers and impact co-polymers.
maintained prominence due to certain restrictive environments or performance requirements. This could be where high temperatures are encountered or where chemical resistance is of importance or weight is a consideration or even where f u n c t i o n a l stability has to be maintained. Singapore has
been chosen as the venue since the polymer manufacturing and compounding industries, as well as the plastics processing and fabrication industries, are well advanced. This conference, therefore, would be of significant interest and provide a suitable forum of discussion, for global manufacturing companies, resin manufacturers, compounders, designers, process engineers, R&D specialists, plastics fabricators & material suppliers.