Visteon Corp. is slated to receive more than USD33 million in exchange for exiting its interiors business with Nissan North America Inc. Visteon plans to sell its four U.S. plants that supply cockpit modules, front-end modules and other interiors products to Nissan production in Smyrna, Tennessee and Canton, Mississippi to a holding company created by Nissan.

A new market study presented by Freedonia presents industry forecasts for the international TPE markets. According to the study world demand for thermoplastic elastomers is forecast to rise 5.9 % per year through 2013 to 4.75 million tonnes.

According to statistics of the Italian Plastics and Rubber Processing Machinery and Moulds Manufacturers’ Association Assocomaplast, in the first semester of 2009, the Italian exports of plastics and rubber machinery decreased by 32 % in value with respect to the same period of last year. However, German manufacturers, the main competitors of the sectoral made in Italy, recorded an even worse drop of -37 %.

Krahn Chemie GmbH with headquarters in Hamburg, Germany, has established a subsidiary in Poland.

Dow has announced the opening of a new laboratory for its Elastomers Business.

Effective 1 July 2009 Hamburg-based distributor Biesterfeld Plastic has extended the cooperation for Santoprene TPV as well as Vistamaxx from Exxon­Mobil Chemical to Turkey and Middle East/Africa.

Kraton announced a general price increase in Europe, Africa and the Middle East of EUR 75/mt across all markets and end uses, for its SBS and OE SBS polymers. Subject to the terms of any applicable contracts, the price increase will take effect November 1, 2009, said the company in a press release from 1 October.

Küttner Industrieberatungs GmbH is looking back at 25 years of distribution partnership with ExxonMobil Chemical.

Merquinsa has announced the launch of a new family of Pearlthane ECO TPU grades made with Cerenol, DuPont’s renewably-sourced polyol.

The German plastics machinery company KraussMaffei is investing around 4 million EUR in its biggest production plant, located in Allach on the outskirts of Munich. The company is building and equipping a new surface treatment centre to replace the existing paint shop. The centre is scheduled to be operational by the end of 2009.