Mexico

Ahead of labor, materials, and energy costs, a new report states that access to talented workers capable of supporting innovation are the key factor driving global competitiveness at manufacturing companies. The 2010 Global Manufacturing Competitiveness Index, a research report from Deloitte's Global Manufacturing Industry group and the U.S.

Berry Plastics (Evansville, IN) is deploying polypropylene (PP) ropes, booms, and flexible intermediate bulk containers (FIBCs) made its Atlacomulco, Mexico manufacturing site to help in the Gulf of Mexico oil-spill clean up and containment. Marketed under the brand name X-Sorbs, the Pom-Pom Ropes and Sorbent Booms act as adsorbent rather than absorbent products.

A company founded in 2001 by a 19-year-old Princeton University freshman is increasingly finding a home for "un-recyclable" plastics and bridging the gap between consumers of everyday items like drink pouches and the brand owners that create them. Now, Tom Szaky, a grizzled 28-year-old that was named to Inc. magazine's 30 under 30 list at 24, and his company, TerraCycle (Trenton, NJ), are reaching out to the plastics industry.

Fraunhofer Institute researchers have developed a method to coat plastic foils with a very thin barrier layer that keeps out humidity and oxygen, using a vacuum-based, roll-to-roll coating process that can coat several thousand square meters of foil in a single hour.

Overview: The slide in spot commodity resin prices that began in May continued into the first week of June, with the average polyethylene (PE) price shedding $0.01/lb and polypropylene (PP) prices giving back another $0.02/lb. Plastics spot-trading platform The Plastics Exchange (TPE) reported that monomer costs also dropped, and market participants fully expect June resin contracts to settle lower.

Cereplast Inc. (El Segundo, CA) has entered into a distribution agreement with Ashland Distribution to supply its bioplastic resins throughout Canada, Mexico, Puerto Rico, and the U.S. A company representative told PlasticsToday that in the past sales in those geographies were handled directly by three regional directors. The company estimates that the North American region accounts for about 60% of its sales.

Continuing difficulties in the polyethylene terephthalate (PET) market and the rapid rise of its next-generation copolyester have prompted chemical and plastics manufacturer Eastman Chemical Co. (Kingsport, TN) to reassess its portfolio, with the previously announced strategic review of its PET unit to be concluded this summer.

Overview: The spot resin market remained bearish last week, with prices still under pressure, according to Michael Greenberg, CEO of spot-trading platform, The Plastics Exchange (TPE). While limited supplies have been made available, market participants believe more material could be pushed through if needed. On the basis of soaring feedstock costs, resin prices had shot higher through mid-April, but have since collapsed along with spot monomers.

Year-over-year earnings reports show how far the global plastics industry has come since the start of 2009, with plastics titans Dow, ExxonMobil Chemical, and BASF showing double-digit gains in sales and volumes, even in Western economies that had heretofore lagged.

Producer discipline, Middle Eastern start-up delays, and ravenous Chinese demand forestalled oversupply issues for polyolefins in 2009, but the global market could be overtaken by a second wave of capacity additions launching in 2010. That was the conclusion drawn by a number of presenters at Chemical Market Associates Inc.'s (CMAI; Houston) World Petrochemical Conference (WPC; March 23-25; Houston; Hilton Americas).