LyondellBasell Starts up New PP Compounding Plant in Mexico

LyondellBasell Industries has announced the start-up of a new polypropylene (PP) compounding facility in Altamira, Mexico, with a nominal capacity of 30 KT per year. The company is the leading global producer of PP compounded products and supplies the automotive, appliance, electrical and electronics sectors.

OFS Responds to Increasing Energy and Raw Material Costs

OFS today announced it will raise the price of its optical fiber cable products immediately by up to 10 percent depending on their exposure to rising materials, energy, and transportation costs.

Dekoron’s DEKABON - “An innovative, more environmentally friendly & a valuable alternative to Lead Sheath technology”

In Oil & Gas and most industrial environments a major problem is given by the permeability of Cable plastic sheaths to humidity and aggressive chemicals, organic ones such as hydrocarbons and solvents and inorganic ones such as acids and bases. Penetration of these elements to the core of the cable compromise its overall lifetime performance. A conventional cable core protection against above mentioned elements is generally achieved by applying a lead sheath.

Schleuniger Group acquires PAWO AG

The Schleuniger Group, based in Thun, Switzerland, a worldwide leading supplier of wire processing machines, has acquired PAWO Systems AG, head-quartered in Unterägeri, Switzerland. PAWO has a staff of about 100 employees with sales of 25 mio CHF. For PAWO, this step means an early succession for the current ownership. For Schleuniger, it is a strategic development which will further enhance their position in the market. The purchase price will not be disclosed.

Quality Wire Products planning US$ 4 million expansion

Bahrain-based Quality Wire Products Company is to undergo a BD1.5 million ($4m) expansion, it was revealed yesterday. The company, which manufactures wire mesh, is to relocate its factory from Salmabad to Hidd within a year, said managing director K U Kumar. “The company currently employs 50 people, including 15 Bahrainis,” he told the GDN.

Borealis Company Information

Borealis at a glance

Delivering innovative, value creating plastics solutions

With more than 40 years of experience in polyolefins and using our unique Borstar® technology, we focus on providing plastic materials to the infrastructure, automotive and advanced packaging markets across Europe, the Middle East and Asia. Our production facilities, innovation centres and service centres work with customers in more than 120 countries to provide materials that make an essential contribution to society and sustainable development. We are committed to the principles of Responsible Care® and to leading the way in Shaping the Future with Plastics™.

Our polypropylene (PP) and polyethylene (PE) products continue to enhance society and address challenges such as providing clean drinking water and sanitation to millions of people around the globe and safe, light, energy-saving components for cars and aeroplanes. We live by our values of Responsible, Respect, Exceed and Nimblicity™ – a value we created as an expression of what makes us different.

From simple everyday products that make life easier to step-changing technological developments, we are leading the way and Shaping the Future with Plastics. 

Feedstocks and olefins

As an integrated polyolefins company, Borealis ensures a secure, cost-efficient supply of hydrocarbon feedstocks for our crackers, and olefins for our PE and PP plants.

Borealis purchases basic feedstocks from the oil and gas industries and converts these into ethylene and propylene through its olefin units. These feedstocks include:

• Naphtha
• Butane
• Propane
• Ethane

Our steam crackers in Finland, Sweden, and Abu Dhabi (joint venture with ADNOC) produce both ethylene and propylene, while propylene is also produced in a propane dehydrogenation plant in Belgium. The balance of our olefin needs is sourced primarily from one of our owners, OMV. We also sell a variety of co-products from the cracking process.

Innovation

Innovation plays a central role in Borealis’ strategy of creating and delivering value to customers. Borealis’ polymer research and product development focuses on high-performance, cost-effective, differentiated polymers. Approximately 10% of our workforce makes up our technology organisation at three Innovation Centres in Austria, Finland and Sweden, which act to minimise the time to market for new products.

Approximately 30% percent of Borealis’ research and development budget is dedicated to reaching far beyond the customers’ current challenges to tomorrow’s solutions. Borstar technology is revolutionising the scope of plastics solutions possible today and in the future.

Borouge Company Information

Borouge is a leading provider of innovative plastics solutions. With a heritage of reliable customer partnership and value creation through innovation, Borouge is a unique company that brings together the very best of Europe and the Middle East.

Established in 1998 as a joint venture between the Abu Dhabi National Oil Company (ADNOC), a major Gulf oil company, and Borealis, a leading European plastics provider, Borouge is a groundbreaking international partnership delivering innovative plastics solutions to customers throughout the Middle East, Asia-Pacific and Africa. Borouge’s state-of-the-art petrochemical complex is located at Ruwais, Abu Dhabi in the United Arab Emirates.

Together, Borouge and Borealis employ unique Borstar® technology to produce differentiated products for high-value infrastructure applications, including water, gas and industrial pipe systems, power and communication cables, advanced packaging and automotive components.

What We Do

Borouge produces innovative plastics solutions in end-use plastics applications throughout the Middle East, Asia-Pacific and Africa.

Borouge’s range of differentiated products for high-value infrastructure applications include water, gas and industrial pipe systems, power and communication cables, advanced packaging and automotive components. Borouge is also the exclusive supplier of the entire Borealis product line.

Using Borealis’ unique Borstar® technology in its products, Borouge facilitates the manufacture of high-performance, high-value plastic products that are vital to modern living. The advantages of Borstar are well recognised in the industry and are central to Borouge’s success.

To meet ever-increasing market demand, Borouge plans a multi-billion dollar expansion at its production base in Ruwais, Abu Dhabi in the United Arab Emirates. The project, ‘Borouge 2’, is due to commence production in 2010. This world-scale project will triple existing production capacity to two million tonnes per annum, including, for the first time, polypropylene.

For contact details visit the raw materials database in TheCableDirectory.com

http://www.thecabledirectory.com/raw.asp

Borouge and Borealis showcase solutions and asset investments at Wire 2008

Borouge and Borealis, the world’s leading providers of innovative, value creating plastics solutions for the wire and cable industry, will present their active commitment to investing in and providing technically advanced, high quality, cost-effective solutions for the industry at the forthcoming Wire 2008 exhibition. Innovative product developments and capacity investments to meet the needs of the growing wire and cable market will take centre stage at Stand D72 Hall 10 from 31 March – 4 April 2008 in Düsseldorf, Germany.

There Borouge and Borealis will launch a pioneering low voltage solution to Wire 2008 visitors, reinforcing its pledge to keep wire and cable manufacturers competitive through plastic innovations that deliver increased productivity, cost reductions and energy savings, while ensuring end-users receive the best quality cables for distributing energy and transmitting information.

This commitment is supported by Borealis’ EUR370 million investment in Stenungsund, Sweden. There a new 350,000 t/y high pressure low density polyethylene (LDPE) plant, and modernisation and streamlining of compounding and related material handling facilities - all due for completion at the end of 2009 - will enhance capability to provide advanced materials for the global wire and cable market. It builds upon the cross-linkable polyethylene (XLPE) capacity that came on stream in the second half of 2007.

Latest product developments will be presented alongside the complete line of high productivity Supercure™ XLPE cable insulations, Borcell™ cellular materials for low signal attenuation for radio frequency cables, and the Visico™/ Ambicat™ catalyst system, which simplifies production of low voltage cable insulation leading to reduced costs and energy savings.

“The Asian and Middle East Wire and Cable markets are very demanding in terms of product quality and overall manufacturing efficiency. It is important to continue our value creation through innovation approach to make our customers more successful in bringing reliable and high performance products to these rapidly growing markets,” says Hu Wei, Borouge Vice President Wire and Cable. “At Wire 2008, we are looking to broaden our understanding of our current and potential customer needs to ensure that our responses provide the most effective solutions.”

 

The biennial, international Wire exhibition is a key forum for the exchange of information from people across the industry. Borouge and Borealis have more than 40 years experience in providing consistently high-quality polyolefin compounds to the Wire and Cable industry and is the world leader in this market segment.