U.S. sees rising production of coatings, adhesives, dyes and pigments in late 2022
U.S. chemical production was mixed in the latest three-month-moving-average report by the main guild of chemical producers with gains in coatings, adhesives, industrial gases, synthetic dyes and pigments production that it said were offset by lower output of plastic resins, organic chemicals, synthetic rubber, fibers, fertilizers and pesticides.
“As nearly all manufactured goods are produced using chemistry in some form, manufacturing activity is an important indicator for chemical demand,” it said.
For November alone, the U.S. Chemical Production Regional Index (U.S. CPRI) fell by 0.4% following declines of 0.4% in September and 0.3% in October.
Chemical output was lower than a month ago in all U.S. regions, with the biggest declines in the Gulf Coast, home to much of the nation’s basic industrial chemical and synthetic materials production capacity.
“The declines reflect sluggish output in several end-use manufacturing industries and weak export markets,” the ACC said.
Cox Enterprises to invest $150 million in plastic recycling through Nexus
Cox Enterprises, an Atlanta-based company that owns Cox Communications and Cox Automotive, will invest $150 million to help Nexus “build additional capacity to serve its expanding customer base and meet the outsized demand for recycled-plastic products.”
Nexus plans to build facilities that have the capacity to process more than 250 million pounds of used plastic annually, according to the release.
“Using its proprietary end-to-end solution, Nexus works with recycling organizations to capture used plastics, especially hard-to-recycle films, from landfills and has already diverted millions of pounds of plastics,” it said
Just a small percentage of the plastic consumed in the U.S. is recycled, according to environmental organizations. Other regions of the world, like Europe, have higher recycling rates.
Neighboring Canada has enacted bans on several single-use plastics, that at the same time promote easier to recycle materials, to prevent more waste from reaching landfills, or other plastic waste from ending up in oceans and rivers.
The plastic resin industry promotes what it describes as the circular plastic economy with a stress in recycling.
Cox, founded 125 years ago, has about $21 billion in annual revenue.
U.S. home sales decline from last year
Sales of new single‐family houses in November 2022 were at a seasonally adjusted annual rate of 640,000, according to estimates released jointly today by the U.S. Census Bureau and the Department of Housing and Urban Development on Dec. 23. This is 5.8% above the revised October rate of 605,000, but is 15.3% below the November 2021 estimate of 756,000 homes.
The seasonally‐adjusted estimate of new houses for sale at the end of November was 461,000. This represents a supply of 8.6 months at the current sales rate, the U.S. Census Bureau said.
As for existing homes, sales declined for the tenth month in a row in November, the National Association of REALTORS said separately on Dec. 21, 2022.
Sales of existing single-family homes, townhomes, condominiums and co-ops fell 7.7% from October to a seasonally adjusted annual rate of about 4.1 million in November. Year-over-year, sales fell 35% (down from 6.33 million in November 2021).
“In essence, the residential real estate market was frozen in November, resembling the sales activity seen during the COVID-19 economic lockdowns in 2020,” said NAR Chief Economist Lawrence Yun.
“The principal factor was the rapid increase in mortgage rates, which hurt housing affordability and reduced incentives (…) Plus, available housing inventory remains near historic lows,” Yun said.
Total housing inventory registered at the end of November was 1.14 million units, down 6.6% from October, but up 2.7% from one year ago. Unsold inventory sits at a 3.3-month supply at the current sales pace, identical to October, but up from 2.1 months in Nov. 2021.
Housing and construction is one of the biggest drivers of demand for petrochemicals ranging from PVC for tubing and fixtures to multiple specialty chemicals for uses including insulation, coatings, products with retardants and even pesticides or cleaning. Automotive, and packaging in its many forms are two other key drivers of the industry.
Braskem taps KPMG as new auditors to meet mandatory rotation
Brazilian-based Braskem said on Jan. 3, 2023 that it has hired as independent auditors for the 2023-2025 period KPMG in substitution of Grant Thornton as auditors.
The auditing is needed to meet North American legislation and KPMG was the auditor for the 2015-2019 period, later replaced by Grant Thornton for 2020-2022.
Braskem follows regulations that call for mandatory rotation of independent auditors, the company said.
Braskem is Latin America’s biggest petrochemical company. It is also the biggest polypropylene producer in North America.
While Braskem has guidelines that mandate the rotation of auditors, this appears to run in contrast with at least one state oil Latin American company: Petroperu.
The former President of Petroperu, Humberto Campodonico, said in late October 2022 in a televised interview, where he also announced his resignation amid supply problems, that his key achievement during his April-October 2022 period of his second presidency of the Peruvian state oil company Petroperu was to get the auditing company that had worked on Petroperu´s auditings for several years to continue.
He said the auditing company had objected to continue with Petroperu auditings after Petroperu rotated authorities following the 2021 elections, but had accepted after Campodonico’s appointment.
By Reuters Events Downstream
