NEWS
NEWS IN BRIEF...
Sweden’s Nexam Chemi- cal has received a €1m order for its Nexamite masterbatch from a leading un-named producer of PET foam. Deliveries will be made during the first eight months of 2020 in Europe and North America. The company also said it was to spend €1m to update its productions locations in Sweden and Scotland.
www.nexamchemical.com
Diversified chemicals company PMC Group is to buy the organotin special- ties product line of Lanxess Organometallics. The deal should close by the end of 2019 and covers organotin catalysts, organotin specialities and intermediates. Lanxess will continue to toll manufac- ture some products.
www.pmc-group.com
www.lanxess.com
Q3 machinery shipments in US down 15% on 2018
US shipments of primary plastics machinery declined by 15.9% year-on-year to $249m in Q3 2019, accord- ing to the Plastics Industry Association’s Committee on Equipment Statistics (CES). The figure was also slightly down on Q2 shipments. The heaviest year-on-year decline was for twin-screw extruders (-29.3%) followed by injection moulding machinery (-15.5%) and single-screw extruders (-5.6%). “The machinery shipment numbers were in sync with weaker manufacturing activity against the back- drop of an economy that moved sideways,” said Dr Perc Pineda, the associa- tion’s chief economist. Exports were almost
static at $378.4m. Mexico, Canada, and Germany still
Primary plastics machinery shipments Source: PLASTICS Committee on Equipment Statistics
represented the largest mar- kets, with a combined 48% of the total. China, the fourth largest, was 27.6% down on Q2 at $22.2m.
Machinery imports fell by 0.9% to $785.7m, thus combining to reduce the plastics machinery trade deficit by 1.7%. “The challenges and concerns of the business sector of the economy
today, and plastics industry is no exception, are largely driven first by external factors – weak global economic growth and ongo- ing trade disputes – feeding into the US, which is largely an open economy. It is safe to say that it is unlikely that the ongoing trade disputes will be resolved this year,” Pineda said. �
www.plasticsindustry.org
USP opens TPE production plant in Texas
Custom compounder United Soft Plastics (UPS) has opened a 1,860 m2
facility at
Houston in Texas, US, complementing its current operation at Lawrenceville in Georgia. The new plant will
produce the full UPS product portfolio, including tradition- al SEBS-based TPEs, TPOs and TPUs as well as specialty acrylic-based TPE com- pounds, and will have a capacity of 5,400 tonnes/yr. USP Executive Vice-President Benedict Herbst said the investment “represents a strategic market reposi-
12
Left: Automotive has been a key driver in demand for USP’s TPE compounds
capacity at Houston will allow the Georgia location to take on more product development projects, the company said. The Houston facility is equipped with a KraussMaffei Berstorff twin-screw com- pounding extrusion system
tioning which enables USP to move closer to raw material hubs and high-volume customer accounts in Mexico, the Southwest US and also Asia”. The additional production
COMPOUNDING WORLD | December 2019
with a Nordson underwater pelletiser. It also houses advanced testing equipment and a fully equipped materials laboratory. �
www.unitedsoftplastics.com
www.compoundingworld.com
IMAGE: UNITED SOFT PLASTICS
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