Counting down the most popular Plastics News stories of 2017

It's that time again … time for me to channel the ghost of Casey Kasem and count down the top Plastics News stories of the year.

News junkies (like me) may want to pause now and try to guess the most popular.

This list is based on readership, basically the stories that got the most page views on PlasticsNews.com this year. Because I'm looking at 2017, the list tends to skew just a bit in favor of stories posted early in the year, because they've been online longer.

I'm also combining some related stories where it makes sense, but I'll include all the links for readers interested in more information.

Unlike Casey Kasem, I'm not going to count down the top 40. I'll keep it to 25. As usual, M&A and resin pricing news do pretty well.

So here we go…

No. 25: Post-Harvey, rail, trucking issues are impacting markets

North America had three major hurricanes impact the plastics industry this year, and the most significant was Hurricane Harvey, which hit the Gulf Coast in August. Our No. 25 story came just a few weeks later: “Post-Harvey, rail, trucking issues are impacting markets.”

No. 24: The next plastics boom could be around the corner

Next up is one of our twice-monthly columns from economist Bill Wood: “The next plastics boom could be around the corner.” He looked at the impact of all the new resin capacity coming on stream in North America this year (11 billion pounds of polyethylene capacity alone) and how processors may be impacted.

We have more Harvey related news, this time covering how plastics processors and others (not specifically resin) were impacted by the storm. Here are links to some of our best post-Harvey coverage of those firms: Plastics firms take stock of damage from Harvey, Processors take stock of damage from Harvey, Houston molder helping workers get back on their feet.

No. 22: Private equity firm buys Plastic Components Inc.

Here's the first of many merger and acquisitions stories in this year's Top 25: the sale of 2008 Plastics News Processor of the Year winner Plastic Components Inc. Cleveland-based MPE Partners, a private equity firm, bought the Germantown, Wis.-based custom molder from Tom Duffey.

No. 21: US plastics industry urges caution on renegotiating NAFTA

Just days after the inauguration of President Donald Trump, we took a look at how one of his controversial campaign promises – to renegotiate the North American Free Trade Agreement – would impact the plastics industry.

No. 20: Sonoco Products buying Peninsula Packaging

More M&A news at the No. 20 spot, the scoop that Sonoco Products Co. was acquiring thermoformer Peninsula Packaging Co. LLC in a $230 million all-cash deal. The move nearly doubled Sonoco's thermoforming business.

No. 19: Letica purchase adds to RPC Group's US footprint

Another major packaging deal, this one international in scope: RPC Group, one of the largest makers of injection molded packaging in Europe, bought Rochester, Mich.-based Letica Corp. for $640 million.

Company expansion news can get pretty good play in Plastics News, but it needs to be pretty special to make our Top 25 list. The news that major housewares molder Sterilite Corp. was planning to build a massive manufacturing and distribution plant in Davenport, Iowa, fit the bill.

I'm a little surprised that another major expansion story didn't make our Top 25 list. Maybe you missed it? It's “BD to invest $60 million in Nebraska plastics plant,” the news that Becton, Dickinson and Co. said it planned to turn a plant in Columbus, Neb., into one of the largest, most sophisticated injection molding operations in the world with a $60 million investment that would bring most of its molding in-house.

No. 17: United buys Rubbermaid storage totes business

The housewares market may have a reputation for being mature and dull, but that wasn't the reality in 2017. In addition to Sterilite's expansion and this acquisition by Newell Rubbermaid, we also saw big headlines from Iris USA, Sapona Plastics, Starplast, Arrow Home Products and Tupperware Brands Corp. this year. Expect the battle for market share to continue in 2018.

No. 16: Keter Plastics planning $36 million plant in New Mexico

Oh, and did I forget to mention Keter Plastics, an Israel-based housewares major, that in January announced plans to invest $36 million in a molding plant in Belen, N.M.?

This was our biggest medical market story of 2017, the somewhat complicated deal that saw MedPlast Inc. and Nordson Corp. buy different pieces of Vention Medical.

No. 14: Indorama Ventures acquiring DuPont Teijin Films

One of the biggest stories of 2015 was the surprising news that Dow Chemical Co. and DuPont Co. planned to merge.

The deal finally wrapped up this year. Meanwhile, both companies shed a few non-core businesses along the way. Wouldn't it be nice to be big enough that one of the world's largest makers of polyester film is just a non-core business? This was still a huge deal for Indorama Ventures Public Co. Ltd., the Bangkok-based company that may not be a household name in plastics yet, but it's getting there.

No. 13: PolyOne sells former Spartech business for $115 million

Spartech is a pretty well known name in the North American plastics industry. PolyOne bought the business in 2013 for almost $400 million. After four years of disappointing results, PolyOne sold the business to private equity firm Arsenal Capital Partners. (The $400 million/$115 million numbers aren't as bad as they look, because PolyOne did integrate Spartech's color concentrate and formulation assets).

By the way, just a few weeks later, Arsenal announced that it was changing the name of the business. So instead of calling it “the former Spartech business,” now we get to call it Spartech again. Much easier for headline writers!

In a side note, another PolyOne M&A story played a key role in one of our most popular videos of 2017.

No. 12: Amcor expanding packaging plant in Ohio

Next up, another major investment by a plastics processor. This time it's a $40 million project in Bellevue, Ohio. The plant makes injection molded preforms and blow molded bottles.

No. 11: Berry Plastics becoming Berry Global Group

It's just a name change, sure. But Berry is a Top 10 company in our rankings of North American injection molders, thermoformers, film & sheet makers … and it's No. 11 in blow molders. Chances are pretty good you either work for Berry, or for one of Berry's competitors, or one of its suppliers.

They may have taken “plastics” out of the name, but I expect it's still going to be a force in the industry for a long time.

This was our No. 5 story in our Material Insights video this week on the top materials-related stories of 2017. Frank Esposito reported how materials companies were preparing for the storm, with controlled shutdowns that allowed most to get up and running again within weeks after the storm hit.

No. 9: Nicolet Plastics sold; new owner to seek additional acquisitions

Another nice M&A scoop in the Top 10, my story on the sale of innovative custom molder Nicolet Plastics Inc. to an affiliate of family-owned Badger Mining Corp.

Nicolet is known for making the most of complexity — molding small lots, with numerous tool changes — using a philosophy called Quick Response Manufacturing, which managers learned from Rajan Suri at the University of Wisconsin. The company specializes in low- to moderate-volume projects, and highly complex custom parts.

No. 8: Silgan buys WestRock's closures business in $1 billion deal

Another big packaging M&A deal for Jim Johnson, Silgan Holdings Inc.'s billion-dollar purchase of WestRock Co.'s specialty closures and dispensing business, formerly known as Calmar Inc.

The acquisition included 13 plants in North America, Europe, South America and Asia making triggers, pumps, sprayers and dispensing closures for home, health and beauty products.

No. 7: Chevron Phillips declares force majeure on HDPE

A January incident at Chevron Phillips' high density polyethylene plant in Orange, Texas, caused the company to declare force majeure for HDPE resins in March.

No. 6: Sabic resin delivery remains delayed for some processors and Sabic says deliveries are improving, but not all customers agree

These are separate stories reported just a few weeks apart, so they could be No. 6 and No. 7. But I'll combine them for the purposes of this ranking. They're both follow-up stories on one of our most popular stories of 2016, on delivery problems that Saudi Basic Industries experienced after implementing a new global enterprise resource planning system.

Processors were scrambling for Sabic resins for months. For two years in a row, this issue was one of the most popular story topics on our website. “Sabic” is also consistently one of the most-searched words in our PlasticsNews.com search engine.

Back in April, Jim Johnson unearthed a nugget of interesting news from Bemis Co. Inc.'s quarterly earnings call with analysts: consumer packaged goods customers were scaling back orders, and Bemis would have to adjust its business expectations for the year.

This was just a few months after a more positive headline, “Bemis Co. Inc. sees progress with global approach.”

To close the loop (for now), Jim had this follow-up story in November: “Bemis Co. Inc. targets even bigger cuts in restructuring.”

No. 4: P&G says Imflux has created a new way to mold

Imflux, Procter & Gamble Co.'s innovative molding process, largely has been a mystery revealed only in patents … until this year.

After four years of secrecy, Imflux Inc. managers made presentations at a Penn State Erie conference and KraussMaffei Corp's open house in Florence, Ky. And in October, Bill Bregar wrote a major story on the technology. The story became one of our most-shared articles ever on social media.

For fun, take a look at our very first stories on Imflux. First, “Procter & Gamble launching plastics processing operation” from October 2013.

Then, this 2013 scoop from our sister newspaper Ad Age: “Procter & Gamble's tooling technology could save it $1 billion annually.”

After months of supply chain issues from the ERP system rollout, Saudi Basic Industries Corp. was hit with an equipment issue in June that forced it to declare force majeure for polycarbonate resins. Plastics News readers wanted to know as much as they could about the problem and how it would impact their deliveries.

No. 2: PP prices start 2017 with a big increase

Pricing news is always big for Plastics News readers, and the biggest price increase of the year was naturally the most read pricing story. But this one wasn't hurricane related. It was Frank's January story on polypropylene prices jumping 10 cents per pound. What a way to start a year!

Casey Kasem never held the “long-distance dedication” for the No. 1 song. (Millennial readers are just going to have to take my word for it). But I'm going to break the rules today.

For our No. 1 story, let me give a plug to our coverage of China. Plastics News has three regular correspondents in China, and they're all excellent. In addition, Steve Toloken, our news editor international, was based in China from 2006 to 2014, so he knows that market inside and out. Since he returned to the States, Steve now edits the stories for our Plastics News China websites.

So it's no surprise that Plastics News had a major scoop in 2017 for North American readers, on China's new National Sword policy banning imports of certain plastic scrap. Our coverage started in February and continued throughout the year, as the global plastics and recycling sector readers started to catch on to the significance of the story.

The most-read story of the bunch came five months later, in July, when China officially told the World Trade Organization that it will ban imports of scrap plastics by the end of the year. But, of course, PN readers knew the move was coming, thanks to our coverage from our team in China. Well done!

It was quite a year for the global plastics industry, and for Plastics News. We're looking forward to continuing to bring you scoops, and keep you informed about all the most important stories and trends, in 2018. Happy New Year, everyone!