Base metals traded on the London Metal Exchange are on divergent paths this morning, Friday September 15, with losses in aluminium (-0.6%), nickel (-0.5%) and copper (-0.1%) at $6,496 per tonne, while zinc is up 0.3% and lead and tin are little changed. SEE MORE Iran's Amir Kabir Petrochemical Company aims to export 5,000-8,000 mt/month of polyethylene to Southeast Asia in 2018, with Vietnam expected to be the main target market, Sales and Marketing Manager Daiko Abbasi said Friday on the sidelines of VietnamPlas 2017. SEE MORE In the Asian petrochemical market this week, the impact of Tropical Storm Harvey has rippled into the acrylonitrile sector. Two major ACN producers -- Ascend Performance Materials and Ineos Nitriles -- had declared force majeure at their Texas plants in end August and early September, causing extreme supply tightness. SEE MORE The Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Development (MARD) has valued the Vietnam Rubber Group (VRG), the country’s largest rubber company, at VND4 trillion (US$177.78 million), not including its land, marking another step toward its equitisation by the end of 2017. SEE MORE Vietnam lost as much as $15 million from crude oil exports to China in the first eight months of this year, after giving its northern neighbor a 2 per cent discount. SEE MORE