DHAKA, April 3 (Reuters) - Bangladesh shut five fertiliser factories on Saturday to save nearly 250 million cubic feet (mmcft) of natural gas a day in the face of acute electricity shortages, a senior official said. SEE MORE Producer discipline, delays in Middle Eastern start-ups and voracious Chinese demand prevented a tsunami of polyolefins in 2009, but the second spate of capacity additions in 2010 could hit the markets harder. This was the conclusion drawn by a number of presenters at CMAI’s World Petrochemical Conference, as reported in Plasticstoday. In previous WPCs, analysts and market participants assessed a doubling of olefin capacity in the Middle East, with additional production built in China, and forecast a global market flooded with polyethylene (PE), polypropylene (PP) and their feedstocks. SEE MORE Cleveland - Lincoln Electric has introduced the new Excalibur® 10018-D2 MR low hydrogen stick electrode for all-position welding of a variety of carbon-manganese, chromium-molybdenum and low alloy steels typically found in offshore welding applications. SEE MORE A growing trend for natural ingredients in cosmetics and body products is encouraging Japanese manufacturers to re-examine some components that had been discarded in the past. SEE MORE March 4 (Bloomberg) -- Rubber rallied from a two-week low as crude oil rose and a weakening dollar revived investor interest in commodities.
Futures in Tokyo climbed for the first time in three days and gained as much as 1.8 percent. The price fell to 287.3 yen per kilogram ($3,248 a metric ton) yesterday, the lowest level since Feb. 16. SEE MORE