NEWS
NEWS IN BRIEF...
Vinyl and fluropolymers company Mexichem posted a 9% increase in revenues to $5.8bn for 2017 and a 24% gain in EBITDA to $1.1bn. Income from continuing opera- tions – at $357m – was 15% higher year-on-year. The Mexico-headquartered company said the strong 2017 result was in large part due to higher PVC prices. Looking ahead, it said it expects EBITDA growth of 20-25% for 2018, with its business benefiting from the newly acquired micro-irrigation operation, Netafim.
www.mexichem.com
Italian compounder VampTech has acquired a minority share in Malaysia’s Unicolour Polymer Technology, which has been serving as its local manufacturing partner for the past year. The agree- ment includes an option for VampTech to take full ownership of the business, which last year generated sales of more than €10m, at a future date.
www.vamptech.com
BASF has lifted force majeure that has been in place on its Ecoflex compostable polymers and Ecovio derivates since the autumn of last year, when the company found a fault in the plant heating circuit had contaminated products. It said, however, that inventory levels are still low.
www.basf.com
8
Coperion to build ZSK extruders in China
Compounding systems giant Coperion exhibited a ZSK 58 Mc18 twin-screw extruder at the Chinaplas show, the first machine from its high-end line to be assembled at its Chinese production plant at Nanjing. The company has
previously only made mid-range and entry level models at its Chinese facility, which has seen significant
investment and the imple- mentation of strict quality control in recent years. “The investments into
increasing the manufactur- ing capabilities and quality standards at our Nanjing site have been investments into our future,” said Joanne Shen, Managing Director of Coperion Nanjing. “Thanks to this pioneering develop- ment of our facility we are now able to deliver high- quality ZSK twin screw
extruders with local value added and tailored to the requirements of our Chinese customers.” The ZSK 58 Mc18
is the
Coperion’s first China-manufactured ZSK extruder
first locally-assembled machine size available in China; further ZSK machine sizes will follow soon. The company says the China- built models meet local mar- ket demands for efficient production, optimised throughput and high end-product quality while providing faster delivery times and cost savings. Coperion will continue to assemble ZSK ma- chines for the North American market in its US facility and manufacture for the rest of the world in Germany. �
www.coperion.com
FDA clears Total PCR resin
The US Food & Drug Administration (FDA) has confirmed that the second- ary recycling process used at Total’s Antwerp site to make its HDPE ‘circular compounds’ is effective in reducing contaminants from post-consumer recycled HDPE (PCR) HDPE material to allow its use in food packaging. The FDA letter of non- objection clears Total’s rPE 6306, which contains PCR-HDPE, for use in bottles for milk and juices, meat trays and other food packag- ing products at room and refrigeration temperatures.
COMPOUNDING WORLD | May 2018 ‘’We had already demon-
strated that a compound containing post-consumer HDPE and a specifically developed virgin ’booster’ product provides the same or even better performance than conventional virgin product. Now, we are pleased to have received
the non-objection letter from the US Food and Drug Administration confirming the success of our efforts in upgrading recyclates,’’ said Jean Viallefont, Vice President Polymers Europe for Total. The company has also developed a range of PP ‘circular compounds’ with a high PCR content. These are said to match key perfor- mance requirements for many applications, includ- ing crates, caps, bottles and buckets. The company is separately seeking to industrialise PS recycling. �
www.polymers.total.com
www.compoundingworld.com
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