Plastics News Daily Report - May 9, 2018 - 78

78 ‹ PLASTICS NEWS DAILY REPORT ‹ May 9, 2018

New LyondellBasell HDPE
plant set for 2019 opening
By Frank Esposito
Plastics News Staff
LyondellBasell Industries is on
track to open a major new plant
making high density polyethylene
resin.
Houston-based LBI will open
the new plant sometime in 2019 in
LaPorte, Texas, executive Paul Augustowski said in a May 3 interview
with Plastics News. Augustowski
serves as senior vice president of
Americas olefins and polyoelfins for
the firm.
The new HDPE plant will have 1.1
billion pounds of annual production
capacity and will be the first worldscale plant to use the firm's proprietary Hyperzone-brand technology.
Hyperzone has been used at a pilot plant in Europe. The technology
"allows a broad spectrum of HDPE
to be made in one plant," said Augustowski, who began his career in
1990 with LBI predecessor Himont
USA.
The new line's main extruder and
pelletizer were delivered and installed in April. Both sections of its
multizone reactor will be installed
this month. Its gas-phase reactor
will be delivered and installed in
June.
HDPE made via Hyperzone has "a
good balance of properties," includ-

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ing toughness
and chemical resistance, which
can
benefit
large-part and
small-part blow
molding,
film
extrusion,
injection molding
and pipe production, Augustowski added.
Augustowski
"We play in
all markets, and
we're trying to hit all markets," he
said.
Massive amounts of new PE capacity being added in North America - by LBI and other producers
who are making use of shale-based
feedstocks - which means that
some of the new capacity "will find
its way overseas."
"The current wave is outpacing
domestic sales growth," Augustowski said. "We're building for the global
market and have sales channels in
all regions."
He added, however, that a good
deal of the PE expansions have been
focused on low density and linear
low density PE, while HDPE projects

"actually at this moment are underannounced."
The $725 million LaPorte project
is one of several projects on tap for
LBI. The firm is also working on a
major propylene oxide project and
is adding ethylene capacity. Potential projects in the 2022-2025 time
frame include more PE production
in North America and additional
polypropylene capacity in both
North America and Europe.
"We'd like to get into a regular
cadence of major capital projects,"
Augustowski said. "We want to be
competitive long-term on a global
basis and keep all options open."
He added that there's "growing
confidence" in shale gas and oil as
a feedstock.
In addition to his role at LBI, Augustowski is a board member at
Indelpro, LBI's PP joint venture in
Mexico. He also serves as a board
member for the Plastics Industry
Association and as vice chairman of
the plastics operating committee for
the American Chemistry Council.
Outside of expansions from
LBI and other materials makers,
many of LBI's U.S. customers "are
expanding here because of raw
material availability." On the resin
production side, although there are
"pockets of surpluses," capacity
utilization "is holding up well," he
added.

Ube growing presence
in North America
By Karen Laird
Plastics News Europe Editor
Ube Industries Ltd.'s focus on
North America is paying off.
In 2016, the company, which
is headquartered in Japan, reinforced its North American staff
with an experienced team of
more senior executives, with a
goal to expand its presence there
and to become a key player in the
market.
The new strategy has not only
enabled the company to increase
its revenue from existing customers, but it has also attracted new
clients and new markets. Today,
Ube America Inc.'s nylon is being
used by the top five U.S film converters.
As demand for its products in
this market rises - in 2017, Ube's
sales in the region increased by
more than 30 percent compared
to the previous year - the company, which produces polyamides for technical applications
as well as for manufacturing
monofilaments and technical
components, has taken steps to
ensure it can continue to guarantee a constant supply to its
North American customers, with
the opening of a third reactor at
its production site in Castellón,
Spain.
"The reactor has been on line
for the past few months, but now

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all the materials are qualified and
everything's up and running,"
said Alex Peters, sales executive
at Ube, speaking to Plastics News
at NPE2018. "The new reactor
more than doubles our production capacity, boosting this from
32,000 to 72,000 tons per year."
The official opening is in June.
Around 95 percent of the nylon produced at the site in Spain,
which includes copolymers and
terpolymers, medium to high
viscosity, is targeted for export
to the North American market,
where Ube has six warehouses
strategically located in Georgia,
Michigan, Ohio, Ontario, Texas
and Wisconsin.
Driving the Wixom, Mich.based company's growth in the
region is the rising consumer
demand for flexible packaging,
Peters said.
"Flexible packaging plays a vital
role in preventing food waste and
helps meet consumer demand for
food freshness and a longer shelf
life. For producers, it's a cost-efficient solution that can be tailored
for branding purposes. We expect
demand in this area to continue
on an upward trend for the foreseeable future," Peters said.

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