Indonesia’s natural rubber exports reached a value of USD 3.95 billion in 2018, according to sources in Jakarta. That makes the commodity the country’s sixth-biggest exported product.

INVISTA’s technology and licensing group, INVISTA Performance Technologies (IPT), and Pan-Asia PET Resin (Guangzhou) Co. Ltd. have reached an agreement for the licensing of INVISTA’s latest purified terephthalic acid (PTA) process technology. Pan-Asia will utilize INVISTA’s P8 PTA technology at a scale of 1.25 million t/y. The plant would be built in Jizan Economic City, Saudi Arabia. This project signifies INVISTA’s first technology license in the Middle East.

Honeywell announced on 14 March 2019 that Jiangsu Sailboat Petrochemical Co. Ltd. will use Honeywell UOP's C3 Oleflex technology to produce 700,000 t/y of polymer-grade propylene at its facility in Lianyungang City in China's Jiangsu Province. Jiangsu Sailboat will expand its existing facility, which uses Honeywell UOP's methanol-to-olefins (MTO) process to produce ethylene and propylene. The facility's additional output of propylene will further help China meet its demand for plastics. Honeywell UOP will provide licensing and a process design package, equipment, on-site operator training, technical services, and catalysts and adsorbents for the project.

PRG Holdings Bhd’s 63 % owned subsidiary Furniweb Holdings Ltd, which is listed on the Hong Kong Stock Exchange, has proposed to acquire Meinaide Holdings Group Ltd for HKD 140 million (MYR 72.88 million) to be fully satisfied via the issuance of shares. Furniweb believes that the acquisition provides an excellent opportunity for it to expand its business portfolio to include production and sale of polyvinyl chloride (PVC) foam boards, polystyrene foam boards, PVC construction templates and other plastic products, which have high growth potential.

Mitsubishi Shipbuilding Co. Ltd., a group company of Mitsubishi Heavy Industries, Ltd. (MHI) based in Yokohama, held a christening ceremony on 12 March 2019 for a liquefied petroleum gas (LPG) carrier currently under construction for JX Ocean Co., Ltd. The new ship, named FUTURE ACE, will be the twelfth of Mitsubishi Shipbuilding's latest third-generation, 83,000 m3 class LPG carriers.

Armacell announced that it has hosted a ribbon cutting ceremony for its new manufacturing facility in the Kingdom of Bahrain. The company is a specialist in flexible foam for the equipment insulation market and a provider of engineered foams. Bahraini government representatives and Armacell executives attended the ceremonial opening in the Bahrain International Investment Park (BIIP).

Goodyear Engineer Associate Ali Ogburn has been named a 2019 STEP Ahead Honoree by The Manufacturing Institute (MI). The STEP (Science, Technology, Engineering and Production) Ahead Awards recognise women in manufacturing who have demonstrated leadership skills and excellence in their careers and communities. The Manufacturing Institute will present the 2019 STEP Ahead Awards on 11 April 2019 at a ceremony in Washington, DC, USA.

The German company Sigma Engineering GmbH from Aachen is presenting its Sigmasoft Virtual Molding software and the enclosed Autonomous Optimization technology at various exhibitions in spring 2019. The software helps to find the ideal configuration of part, mould and process in one calculation. The Autonomous Optimization and the included possibility to conduct virtual Design of Experiments (DoE) help the users to improve existing injection moulding tools and processes as well as to virtually test different configurations and innovative approaches.

The trade show organiser UKi Media & Events announced that the winners of the “2019 Tire Technology International Awards for Innovation and Excellence” have been presented at a ceremony during Tire Technology Expo 2019 at the Deutsche Messe in Hanover, Germany:

Due to environmental and sustainability concerns, it is desirable to replace mineral oil with vegetable oils as processing aids and plasticizers in rubbers. In this paper the effect of four polymerized soybean oils of high viscosity on processing and physical properties of EPDM rubber in a standard sulfur-cured formulation is evaluated.