Material Insights: July 2, 2012

North American price drops for several major commodity resins are featured in this week's Material Insights video. Regional prices for polyethylene, polypropylene, PVC and PET bottle resin each fell in June. The PE drop was 7 cents per pound, with PP down 15 cents and PVC and PET each falling 5 cents. Lower feedstock costs and waning demand played a role in the decreases. For PE, PP and PVC, it's the second consecutive price drop. For PET, the June drop makes three months in a row. At the midway point of 2012, regional PE prices are down 9 percent, PET prices are down 5 percent, while prices for PP and PVC each are down 3 percent since the start of the year. A fluoropolymer resin capacity expansion from Arkema also is featured in this week’s video. The expansion is taking place in Pierre-Benite, France, where Arkema will spend almost $90 million to increase capacity by 50 percent. The expansion is needed to meet rising demand in oil extraction and other markets. The video wraps up with news that Lanxess Corp. soon will have a new president and CEO. Flemming Bjørnslev will replace Randy Dearth in that role on July 31. Lanxess Corp. is the North American arm of plastics, rubber and specialty chemicals maker Lanxess AG.