Frank Esposito

Parsippany, N.J.-based AdvanSix had sales of $583.7 million for the quarter, up 33 percent vs. the same quarter in 2021. Profit for the quarter was up 48 percent to $65.2 million in the same comparison.

Compounder Aurora Plastics LLC has broken ground on an expansion in Streetsboro, Ohio.

Materials maker Covestro is selling its additive manufacturing business to Stratasys Ltd. for 43 million euros ($43.8 million).

Senior reporter Frank Esposito explores the factors behind the July tumble in prices for multiple resins — polyethylene, polypropylene, polystyrene, PVC and PET — and what's to come. 

Materials maker Selenis has renewed its Recyclass certifications for recycled content traceability. 

Houston-based Westlake saw sales for the quarter grow 63 percent to almost $1.2 billion vs. the year-ago quarter. Quarterly profit jumped 64 percent to $858 million.

Updated: Cuts to pricing for polypropylene and PET bottle resin follow earlier reports of falling prices for polyethylene and suspension PVC.

Materials makers Chemours Co., Celanese Corp. and Eastman Chemical Co. each posted sales gains in the second quarter of 2022. Chemours and Eastman each also saw quarterly profits grow, while those at Celanese declined.

The second quarter of 2022 brought mixed results for materials supplier LyondellBasell Industries, with sales growing as profit declined vs. the same quarter last year.

Wilmington, Del.-based DuPont marked the opening of the Liveo Healthcare Solutions plant at its Cooper River site in Moncks Corners, S.C., on July 28.

Longtime resin executive Greg DeKunder is back on the job at Nova Chemicals less than a year after being diagnosed with colon cancer.

North American commodity resin markets were varied in June, with prices for two materials up, one down and two flat.

Todd Nickerson, recruiting director with MBS Advisors: "Filling positions becomes more about the candidate choosing the employer rather than the employer choosing the candidate."

Todd Karran, the former CEO of resin maker Nova Chemicals, has now taken a top spot at Heartland Polymers, a materials company that just launched production of homopolymer polypropylene in Alberta, Canada.

Plastics merger and acquisition activity is down a bit in the first half of 2022, compared with record high levels of recent years.