State-owned oil company Saudi Aramco and specialty chemicals company Lanxess report that all pertinent authorities have cleared the joint venture agreement signed by the two parties last September, and as a result their joint synthetic rubber company will come into being on 1 April 2016. The 50/50 joint venture will be known as Arlanxeo.
In addition to showcasing its latest tyre industry developments at next month’s Tire Technology Expo in Hannover, Germany, the Tire and Specialty Rubbers (TSR) business unit of specialty chemicals company Lanxess will deliver two presentations on research into potential ways to further optimise tyre rubber compound.
Lanxess Rhein Chemie Additives is presenting its Rhenoshape tyre curing bladders at Tire Technology Expo this February. The products have been developed at the firm’s new production plant in China.
According to the company, the Rhenoshape bladders are the result of investment in injection moulding technology and permanently coated bladders, and are the latest product in the company’s portfolio of eco-friendly Rhenodiv tyre release agents, Rhenomark tyre marking inks, and curing bladders.
Rhein Chemie Additives has opened a production line for Rhenoshape tyre curing bladders at its Chinese production site in Qingdao. The Lanxess business unit set up the facility with a “low single-digit million euro” investment and initially the new production line will expand Rhein Chemie Additives’ global production capacity by around ten per cent. The operation in Qingdao is the company’s fourth bladder plant.
Dr Hubert Fink, head of Lanxess AG’s Advanced Industrial Intermediates business unit, will become the fourth member of the company’s Board of Management on 1 October. Fink’s area of responsibility on the board will cover the Advanced Intermediates segment, including the Advanced Industrial Intermediates and Saltigo business units, and the High Performance Materials business unit; he will also assume responsibility for the Global Procurement & Logistics group function and the Production, Technology, Safety and Environment (PTSE) group function, which combines all production-related services.
Specialty chemicals company Lanxess and Saudi Aramco, the state-owned oil company of the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia, today signed an agreement to establish a synthetic rubber joint venture. Lanxess and Aramco Overseas Company, a subsidiary of Saudi Aramco, will each hold a 50 per cent stake in the €2.75 billion venture, with Saudi Aramco paying approximately €1.2 billion in cash for its 50 per cent share after deducting debt and other financial liabilities.
Specialty chemicals manufacturer Lanxess states it has initiated a carve-out process to transfer its rubber business to a legally independent business entity within the Lanxess Group. The plan is for the new entity to include the company’s Tire & Specialty Rubbers (TSR) and High Performance Elastomers (HPE) business units, which together operate 20 production facilities and have some 3,700 employees.
In mid-2013, Lanxess’ Rhein Chemie Additives business unit opened a new facility in the Lipetsk Industrial Park, around 300 miles southeast of Moscow. Although the plant has produced polymer-bound rubber additives for almost two years now, Lanxess states “it was clear” that “lasting commercial success” with tyre and rubber industry customers in Russia wouldn’t be feasible unless the facility achieved the appropriate ISO certification, and therefore it set about obtaining this at the start of last year.
The average difference in fuel consumption gained by fitting tyres with a ‘B’ EU tyre label fuel efficiency rating instead of ‘F’ rated tyres is around 4.1 per cent, suggests a test carried out in Germany. The six-vehicle test was jointly conducted by Chemical manufacturer Lanxess and energy provider RheinEnergie as part of a project run together by RheinEnergy and the City of Cologne over the last few years.
The recently-formed Lanxess Tire & Specialty Rubbers business unit is introducing two new SSBR products, Buna FX 3234A-2HM and Buna VSL 3038-2HM. Both were developed as alternatives to Buna VSL 2438-2HM, a substance currently widely used in the tyre industry, and aim to offer tyre manufacturers greater options for producing low rolling resistance tyres.
Talk of a “three-phase realignment” and workforce downsizing dominated the release of Lanxess AG’s third quarter 2014 results this month. The specialty chemicals company says it is making “rapid progress” with its realignment programme and aims to achieve annual savings of €150 million by the end of 2016 via the implementation of the first realignment phase, which culls the company’s global headcount by around 1,000. Half these reductions will occur in Germany, where Lanxess is based, and mainly affect the company’s administrative and service units, marketing and sales, along with research and development.
Although volumes at Lanxess increased two per cent year-on-year in the second quarter of 2014, this could not fully offset the five per cent decline in selling prices it experienced. Therefore, the company’s overall sales fell 5.7 per cent year-on-year to €2.02 billion. “The continuing low earnings level and increasing competition show the need for further action to improve competitiveness,” said Board of Management chairman Zachert.
Preparation for certain aspects of the restructuring awaiting Lanxess AG has already begun, and come at a time when the company is able to report improved year-on-year performance. The group-wide programme initiated by the company’s Board of Management on 24 July 2014 will see the number of Lanxess business units shrink from 14 to ten and will involve cuts to the company’s global administrative workforce. The business unit mergers will take effect 1 January 2015.
The Board of Management at German specialty chemicals company Lanxess AG initiated a company-wide restructuring programme at its meeting on 24 July, however detailed information about the shape this restructuring will take won’t be made public until later this year. At present, the measures planned as part of the programme are being discussed with the company’s Supervisory Board and employee representatives.
Chemical producer Lanxess has rolled out a complete rebranding of its butyl rubber products. The brand family now goes under the X Butyl name and all existing product grades have been renamed; Regular Butyl 301, for example, is now called Lanxess X_Butyl RB 301. Bromobutyl 2030 has become Lanxess X_Butyl BB 2030, and Chlorobutyl 1240 has been renamed to Lanxess X_Butyl CB 1240. Lanxess has also launched a new dedicated website, www.butyl.com.
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