Industries and Markets

Metabolix, Inc. (NASDAQ: MBLX), a bioscience company focused on developing sustainable solutions for plastics, chemicals and energy, today reported financial results for the three months ended March 31, 2010.

The Company reported a net loss of $9.8 million or $0.37 per share for the first quarter of 2010 as compared to a net loss of $9.1 million or $0.40 per share for the first quarter of 2009.

The Company's net cash used for operating activities during the first quarter of 2010 was $9.4 million, which compares to net cash used of $8.6 million for the comparable quarter in 2009. Unrestricted cash and short-term investments at March 31, 2010 totaled $82.8 million. The Company continues to have no debt.
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U.S. ethylene prices were volatile during April, with the May New York Mercantile Exchange's (NYMEX) cleared ethylene settling and expiring at $0.50 per pound. The contract, which began trading in July 2009, settled for April last month at $0.615 per pound. Ethylene trades in 100,000-pound lots per contract on the NYMEX's Clearport system.

In the overall cash markets, May ethylene traded from $0.5875 up to $0.68 during the first week of April and traded down to $0.53 per pound by April 23, according to PetroChem Wire (PCW), a daily U.S. petrochemical industry newsletter. PCW's cash market assessments are used to settle the cleared NYMEX contracts. Typical ethylene deals are a minimum of 3 million to 5 million pounds in size, or 30 to 50 lots per trade. So far in April, more than 150 million pounds of ethylene have traded in the spot market.
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For the quarter ended March 31, 2010, Pactiv Corporation announced that income from continuing operations was $48 million, or $0.36 per share, compared with $77 million, or $0.58 per share, in 2009.  Excluding a one-time expense of $3 million related to reduced tax deductibility of Medicare Part D retiree drug subsidies under the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act, first quarter 2010 earnings were $0.38 per share.

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BASF will increase the price for Polyamide (PA) 6 polymer by $0.05 per pound, effective May 3, 2010.  This increase covers PA6 polymer for spinning and compounding.
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 Bayer MaterialScience LLC launched the Baymedix™ brand of medical products, consolidating several product concepts under one unifying name, at the MD&M West trade show held earlier this month.

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Plantic Technologies Ltd. announced a new distribution agreement in the Americas for its line of the Plantic® biopolymer rigid packaging films in an exclusive partnership with the Klöckner Pentaplast Group. 

   
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Plastics & Electronics: The New Flexibility

By Jon Evans

Computers are everywhere: all around your home—in game consoles, televisions, DVD players, and appliances—and they’ve invaded the outside world as well. On every train or plane, in every coffee shop, you’ll see someone working on a laptop; and of course, computers are also in phones, cars, MP3 players, and any other number of electrical gadgets we carry around.

            And this is just the beginning. In a few years, computers will also be on clothes, in bags, on walls, on almost every product that we buy, and even inside us, both disseminating and collecting information. This new generation of computers will be cheap, fairly simple, and, crucially, flexible and printable, and the vast majority will probably be made from electrically conducting polymers.
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