Document oeoEORq0V38K63x2aE4vdJvE8

! TENNfCO. POLYMERS. INC. (COMPANY) INTEROFFICE COMMUNICATlOf TO: FOR: FROM: RE: Flemington D. M. Hersh R. A. Donovan Activity Report November, 1984 DATE: December 6, 1984 1 SAFETY There were no Lost Time or Restricted Duty injuries in the Production, Warehouse or Boiler House Departments during the month. November's Shift Safety Meeting addressed the topic of "BLEVE" Boiling Liquid Expanding Vapor Eruption. The November Union-Management Safety meeting was held on 11/29/84. I I. STATISTICS Attachment I Attachment II Attachment V Production Summary Production Loss Report Overtime Analysis III. PERSONNEL Agreement was reached with both Unions on a two (2) year labor contract on November 6, 1984. One ICWU employee resigned in November. One new ICWU employee was hired during the month. Interviewing continues in an attempt to fill two additional openings. Five (5) ICWU employees, and one IU0E employee were on.long term absences at month's end. One ICWU employee is due to return in early December. IV. COSTS 1. Variable cost estimate for November unfavorable due to above budget steam costs associated with operations during cold weather month, coupled with lower than budget monthly production. TEN 4783 LYIN200A Activity Report November, 198*<"~ Page 2 2. Fixed cost for November favorable due primarily to partial reversal of shutdown accrual in November ($60M of a total of $120M). The remaining $60M will be reversed out in December. 3. Conversion Cost for November unfavorable due to lower than budget production. V. MAJOR PROJECTS AND ON-GOING PROGRAMS A) Process Engineering 1. Work is continuing on the development of a suitable means for removing the acetaldehyde from the Waste Water Stripper discharge. This project has the potential for reducing BOD costs by $10,000 per year. 2. Reducing the backwash frequency of the dryer electro magnets is being evaluated as means of improving yield and reducing effluent costs. This technique is presently being evaluated on flooring material to determine if it has any adverse affects on product quality. Initial results are en couraging, fur ther work will be pursued in December. B) Utilities 1. Use of the cooling tower to cool the reactor jacket water was implemented in November, enabling the shutdown of the mechanical refrigeration system. This project will result in a savings of $20,000 per month in electricity costs for the cold weather months. Work is in progress to determine feasi bility of year round operation without mechanical refrigeration system. 2. Work on the installation of the hot glycol tracing continued in November. To expedite completion, this project has been con tracted out. Savings from this project will be $10,000 per year in reduced steam and electricity costs. C) Warehouse 1. The hopper car vacuum clean out system worked well during the month. During November, 15,700 pounds of resin were reclaimed. To date, 122,000 pounds have been recovered and 66,000 pounds have been reshipped to customers. 2. In an effort to reduce shipping costs, attempts are being made to increase resin weights in shipped hoppers. Our average shipped weight has been 181,000 pounds over the past six (6) months, the goal is to increase this to 190,000 pounds per car. D. PIP Status 1. Including the projects listed above, PIP savings for the month totaled $5^.9M. TEN 4784 Act 1vlty Report November, 1984~ Page 3 VI. ENVIRONMENTAL Reactor Building VCM levels averaged 0.1 ppm in November, Reactor Vapors samples averaged 1200 ppm in November, Stripped slurry samples averaged 122 ppm November. VII. OPPORTUNITIES In order to enable implementation of the refrigeration system shutdown, reaction cycles were increased by catalyst reduction. This reduction provides opportunity to reduce catalyst costs by $ 1800/mo. VI I I .VULNERABILITIES Due to the increased maintenance backlog on critical equipment and unusually high amount of long term absences, controllable overtime was high in November and should remain at that through December. IX. INDUSTRY TREND Vinyl acetate monomer prices are moving in the downward direction, at the same time the price of number 6 oil appears to be heading upward. X. GENERAL COMMENTS Nothing to report. RAD:ms TEN 4785