The Urethane Blog
February 11, 2022
Tosoh appoints new president February 11/2022 MOSCOW (MRC) — Japanese chemicals company Tosoh Corp has appointed Mamoru Kuwada as its new president and representative director, effective 1 March, said the company.
Kuwada is currently executive vice president of Tosoh and president of Tosoh’s Specialty Group. In his new role, Kuwada succeeds Toshinori Yamamoto, who will become a corporate advisor to the company after the annual general meeting in June.
“Implementation of the company’s fiscal 2023 medium-term business plan will be overseen by a new management team, with the aim of further strengthening its earnings and business foundation and achieving further growth,” Tosoh said.
Tosh is a large chlor-alkali producer and it supplies ethylene, polyethylene, and functional polymers. It also has an advanced materials business that serves the global semiconductor, display, and solar industries.
As MRC informed earlier, Tosoh Corporation, a major Japanese petrochemical producer, has announced it will permanently stop producing and selling toluene diisocyanate (TDI) and TDI-related products from its Nanyo complex in Japan, effective April 2023. Despite the continuous implementation of measures to improve profitability, the environment surrounding this business has become increasingly severe in recent years, and there are no prospects for improvement, the company stated. Tosoh currently produce 25,000 t/y of TDI at the site.
As MRC reported earlier, Tosoh resumed normal production at its caustic soda plant in Nanyo City (Nanyo, Yamaguchi Prefecture, Japan) with the capacity of 1.188 million tons of caustic soda and 1.06 million tons of chlorine per year on June 24, 2021. The company experienced some technical issues when restarting after a scheduled repair. Since June 12, the caustic and chlorine production capacity utilisation was reduced by about 30%.
Founded in 1935, Japan’s Tosoh Corporation, headquartered in Tokyo, is an international chemicals and specialty materials company. The main activity of the company is the production of chlor-alkali and petrochemical products, which include ethylene, propylene, polypropylene, polyethylene and synthetic rubbers. The Tosoh Group globally includes over 130 companies with manufacturing facilities and offices in Japan, China, the Philippines, Indonesia, Singapore, Taiwan, South Korea, Germany, Belgium, Holland, Italy, UK, Greece, Switzerland and the USA.
http://www.mrcplast.com/news-news_open-399072.html
February 10, 2022
Driving to the GW Bridge? It’s the worst bottleneck again
American Transportation Research Institute says Texas has the most bottlenecks in US
John Kingston Follow on Twitter Wednesday, February 9, 2022 3 minutes read
Listen to this article 0:00 / 5:44 BeyondWords
Once again, the worst truck bottleneck in the country is as a driver approaches the George Washington Bridge (GWB) from the New Jersey side.
For the third consecutive year, the American Transportation Research Institute found the intersection between state Route 4 and Interstate 95 in New Jersey, just before eastbound traffic crosses the bridge into New York, is the biggest bottleneck in the U.S. ATRI, the research arm of the American Trucking Associations, released its annual list Wednesday.
ATRI uses truck GPS data from the previous year to come up with its findings. It said it uses data from more than 1 million freight trucks and has set up a series of benchmarks to reach its conclusions on the most congested bottlenecks. There are 100 bottlenecks on the list.
Once again, there is only one city with two bottlenecks in the top 10: Atlanta. The intersection between Interstate 285, the loop around Atlanta, and Interstate 85 on the northeast side of the city was fourth on the list — it was third in the 2020 survey — and the intersection between Interstates 20 and 285 on the west side of Atlanta was fifth.
The junction in Cincinnati between Interstates 71 and 75 was second on the list for a second consecutive year. That exchange goes by the name, similar to other intersections around the country, of Spaghetti Junction, given its many elevated ramps that cross each other at varying heights.
ATRI said the rebound of traffic in 2021 had resulted in average rush hour truck speeds of 38.6 miles per hour, which was down more than 11% from the prior year as traffic recovered from the low levels of the pandemic.
The Department of Transportation recently reported that total miles driven in November were more than in 2019, the first time since the pandemic began that vehicle miles traveled were greater than corresponding pre-pandemic levels. In November 2021, vehicle miles traveled in the U.S. totaled 267.5 billion. In November 2019, it was 260.3 billion miles.
Other highlights of the ATRI reports:
– Houston’s downtown intersection between Interstates 45 and 69, which is also state Route 59, moved up to third from fifth last year. Another significant move, albeit downward, came for the intersection between Interstates 75 and 24 in Chattanooga, Tennessee, the only top 10 bottleneck not in one of the country’s biggest cities. It was 10th this year; last year it was seventh.
– While Atlanta may be the only city with two top 10 bottlenecks, Southern California has two on the top 100. In Los Angeles, the intersection between state Routes 60 and 57 in Diamond Bar, a city in eastern Los Angeles County, is on the list, as is the intersection in San Bernardino between Interstates 10 and 15.
– The George Washington Bridge approach was the only New York-area intersection in the top 10. The intersection between I-95 and Interstate 287 in Rye, New York, dropped off the top 10. It was ninth last year. It is down to 17th in the most recent survey.
– Chicago’s Interstate 290/90/94 intersection was sixth in both the 2021 and 2022 surveys.
– The states with the most bottlenecks on the top 100 list were Texas, 14; Georgia and Tennessee, nine; California, eight; Washington, seven; and Connecticut and New York, six. Texas’ ranking led to a statement being released by the Texas Trucking Association. “Texas is used to being ranked No. 1, but this is one list we are not proud to be on top of,” the association’s president and CEO, John D. Esparza, said. “Bottlenecks around the state continue to waste time and money, further damaging the already fragile supply chain. With the newly available federal resources for infrastructure projects, there is no excuse — these bottlenecks must be addressed. A reliable and stable transportation network is essential to our economy — just like the trucking industry.”
– Thirty states have at least one bottleneck on the list. Florida, where residents complain frequently about their traffic, has only one intersection on the list: Interstates 4 and 275 in Tampa at 69th. Boston’s traffic may be legendary as well, but it only came in with a 99th place spot, for Interstate 93 at SR 3. The Washington, D.C., area had a 92nd place finish for the intersection between I-95 and the beltway, known more formally as I-495. The 70th worst bottleneck intersection in Stafford, Virginia, on I-95 is on the more far-flung suburban outskirts of the D.C. suburbs in the Old Dominion State.
February 10, 2022
Driving to the GW Bridge? It’s the worst bottleneck again
American Transportation Research Institute says Texas has the most bottlenecks in US
John Kingston Follow on Twitter Wednesday, February 9, 2022 3 minutes read
Listen to this article 0:00 / 5:44 BeyondWords
Once again, the worst truck bottleneck in the country is as a driver approaches the George Washington Bridge (GWB) from the New Jersey side.
For the third consecutive year, the American Transportation Research Institute found the intersection between state Route 4 and Interstate 95 in New Jersey, just before eastbound traffic crosses the bridge into New York, is the biggest bottleneck in the U.S. ATRI, the research arm of the American Trucking Associations, released its annual list Wednesday.
ATRI uses truck GPS data from the previous year to come up with its findings. It said it uses data from more than 1 million freight trucks and has set up a series of benchmarks to reach its conclusions on the most congested bottlenecks. There are 100 bottlenecks on the list.
Once again, there is only one city with two bottlenecks in the top 10: Atlanta. The intersection between Interstate 285, the loop around Atlanta, and Interstate 85 on the northeast side of the city was fourth on the list — it was third in the 2020 survey — and the intersection between Interstates 20 and 285 on the west side of Atlanta was fifth.
The junction in Cincinnati between Interstates 71 and 75 was second on the list for a second consecutive year. That exchange goes by the name, similar to other intersections around the country, of Spaghetti Junction, given its many elevated ramps that cross each other at varying heights.
ATRI said the rebound of traffic in 2021 had resulted in average rush hour truck speeds of 38.6 miles per hour, which was down more than 11% from the prior year as traffic recovered from the low levels of the pandemic.
The Department of Transportation recently reported that total miles driven in November were more than in 2019, the first time since the pandemic began that vehicle miles traveled were greater than corresponding pre-pandemic levels. In November 2021, vehicle miles traveled in the U.S. totaled 267.5 billion. In November 2019, it was 260.3 billion miles.
Other highlights of the ATRI reports:
– Houston’s downtown intersection between Interstates 45 and 69, which is also state Route 59, moved up to third from fifth last year. Another significant move, albeit downward, came for the intersection between Interstates 75 and 24 in Chattanooga, Tennessee, the only top 10 bottleneck not in one of the country’s biggest cities. It was 10th this year; last year it was seventh.
– While Atlanta may be the only city with two top 10 bottlenecks, Southern California has two on the top 100. In Los Angeles, the intersection between state Routes 60 and 57 in Diamond Bar, a city in eastern Los Angeles County, is on the list, as is the intersection in San Bernardino between Interstates 10 and 15.
– The George Washington Bridge approach was the only New York-area intersection in the top 10. The intersection between I-95 and Interstate 287 in Rye, New York, dropped off the top 10. It was ninth last year. It is down to 17th in the most recent survey.
– Chicago’s Interstate 290/90/94 intersection was sixth in both the 2021 and 2022 surveys.
– The states with the most bottlenecks on the top 100 list were Texas, 14; Georgia and Tennessee, nine; California, eight; Washington, seven; and Connecticut and New York, six. Texas’ ranking led to a statement being released by the Texas Trucking Association. “Texas is used to being ranked No. 1, but this is one list we are not proud to be on top of,” the association’s president and CEO, John D. Esparza, said. “Bottlenecks around the state continue to waste time and money, further damaging the already fragile supply chain. With the newly available federal resources for infrastructure projects, there is no excuse — these bottlenecks must be addressed. A reliable and stable transportation network is essential to our economy — just like the trucking industry.”
– Thirty states have at least one bottleneck on the list. Florida, where residents complain frequently about their traffic, has only one intersection on the list: Interstates 4 and 275 in Tampa at 69th. Boston’s traffic may be legendary as well, but it only came in with a 99th place spot, for Interstate 93 at SR 3. The Washington, D.C., area had a 92nd place finish for the intersection between I-95 and the beltway, known more formally as I-495. The 70th worst bottleneck intersection in Stafford, Virginia, on I-95 is on the more far-flung suburban outskirts of the D.C. suburbs in the Old Dominion State.
February 10, 2022
PODCAST: Asia, Mid East polyols eye demand improvement after lull
Jasmine Khoo
10-Feb-2022
SINGAPORE (ICIS)–In this podcast, ICIS editors Jasmine Khoo and Damini Dabholkar discuss recent developments and the outlook for the Asian and the Middle Eastern polyether polyols markets.
The Asian and Middle Eastern polyether polyols markets observed significant price declines in late 2021, with demand poised to strengthen going forward into March amid restocking activities and recent upstream price gains.
- Upstream propylene oxide (PO) and polyols yuan prices plunged in late 2021
- Competitively-priced Chinese origin cargoes offered to regional markets
- Mideast polyols demand stayed subdued in Dec 2021
- Recovery in PO yuan prices to potentially reflect on H2 Feb, H1 Mar Mideast offers
February 10, 2022
PODCAST: Asia, Mid East polyols eye demand improvement after lull
Jasmine Khoo
10-Feb-2022
SINGAPORE (ICIS)–In this podcast, ICIS editors Jasmine Khoo and Damini Dabholkar discuss recent developments and the outlook for the Asian and the Middle Eastern polyether polyols markets.
The Asian and Middle Eastern polyether polyols markets observed significant price declines in late 2021, with demand poised to strengthen going forward into March amid restocking activities and recent upstream price gains.
- Upstream propylene oxide (PO) and polyols yuan prices plunged in late 2021
- Competitively-priced Chinese origin cargoes offered to regional markets
- Mideast polyols demand stayed subdued in Dec 2021
- Recovery in PO yuan prices to potentially reflect on H2 Feb, H1 Mar Mideast offers
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