Company Dynamic

South Africa-based Sasol has initiated start-up at its new 1.5m tonne/year ethane steam cracker in Lake Charles, Louisiana, and expects beneficial operation by the end of July, the company said in an update on its Lake Charles Chemicals Project (LCCP).

• Polyurethanes

In mid-July, the price market of titanium dioxide has been weak for a long time. After the centralized price adjustment at the beginning of the month, it seems that it has reached a bottleneck stable period.

• Titanium Dioxide

Clariant and Saudi petrochemicals major SABIC have “temporarily suspended” negotiations to form a joint venture to produce high performance materials on the back of current market conditions, the Swiss chemicals producer said on Thursday.

• Clariant

BASF on Wednesday nearly halved its estimates for global chemical growth in 2019 as a result of a downward revisions to its macroeconomic assumptions for the year due to ongoing weakness and a more entrenched US-China trade war.

• chemical
• growth

Global automotive sector woes are not expected to recede until 2020, BASF CEO Martin Brudermuller said on Thursday, projecting a global decline for the sector of 4.5% this year.

• automotive

Gender differences in intestinal flora should be taken into account in the study of these related diseases.

• intestinal
• flora

Not only fruit, the day before yesterday, when reporters visited the vegetable market, they learned that many residents said pork prices were on the high side.

• vegetable
• price

This year, for the first time, the number of big Chinese companies is on par with that of the United States, but how to become stronger has become more urgent.

• BASF
• DuPont

Covestro's second-quarter net income fell sharply amid lower selling prices and margins for its polyurethanes and polycarbonate business segments, the German producer said on Wednesday.

• Covestro

ExxonMobil has begun production at a new 650,000 tonnes/year high performance polyethylene (PE) line in Beaumont, Texas, the company announced on Wednesday.

• ExxonMobil

In fact, with the continuous advancement of public hospital reform, public recruitment of hospital deans in public hospitals is no longer an example.

• hospital
• reform

On-site inspection found that six restaurants and barbecue shops in this area had problems in varying degrees, such as oil fume pollution disturbing people.

• restaurant
• shutdown

Yesterday, the domestic DOP market continued its downward trend, the downstream demand did not improve, the demand remained weak on the basis of off-season.

• DOP

Yesterday, the domestic DOP market declined, downstream demand did not improve, inquiries and procurement were rare, off-season and skewed expectations were maintained.

• DOP

Yesterday, the domestic styrene market shocked downward. In recent trading days, the spot turnover of styrene was not good, the ocean arrival in the second half of the month increased.

• styrene

At present, the impact of this incident on the normal life of the masses is gradually disappearing.

• phenol
• safety

The world's leading paint and coatings company Akzo Nobel announced that it would invest more in its world's largest Changzhou powder coatings plant.

• coating
• company

Ashland had lower-than-expected sales in personal care and certain industrial end markets within its specialty ingredients business.

• Ashland

Singapore's petrochemical exports in June fell by 16.7% year on year to Singapore dollars (S$) 1.24bn ($912m), weighing on overall non-oil domestic exports (NODX), official data showed on Wednesday.

• Singapore
• petrochemical

At the end of June, heavy rains frequently occurred in Jiangsu Province during the Meiyu season. In the weather forecast, the next few days in Rudong County, which is close to the Yellow Sea, will hardly see sunny days.

• shutdown