Bayer MaterialScience has confirmed plans to build a toluen e diisocyanate (TDI) facility at the company’s Dormagen-Uerdingen integrated site in Germany. The facility will have a capacity of 300,000 m.t./year and will replace existing TDI plants at Dormagen and Brunsbüttel, Germany, Bayer says. Bayer told CW last year that it was considering a new TDI plant in Europe using the company’s novel gas-phase phos-genation technology (CW, April 25, 2007, p. 11).
Bayer says that methylene di-para-phenylene isocyanate (MDI) production at Brunsbüttel will also be increased from 160,000 m.t./year, to 400,000 m.t./year partly by converting the site’s TDI plant to produce MDI. The TDI and MDI projects are scheduled to be completed by 2013 with a total Thomas: Chinese market is investment of about €300 million ($402 million), subject to getting bigger. “political acceptance and the availability of a suitable infrastructure for raw materials and energy,” Bayer says.
Meanwhile, Bayer has started production at a previously announced 350,000-m.t./ year MDI plant at the company’s integrated complex at Caojing, China near Shanghai. It is the world’s largest MDI facility, Bayer says. Bayer started construction last August on a previously announced 250,000-m.t./year TDI facility at the Caojing complex, which is scheduled to come onstream in 2010 and will also use gas-phase phosgena-tion technology.
China is the most important market for Bayer MaterialScience in Asia/Pacific and its third-largest market worldwide, the company says. “China is already the world’s largest single market for polycarbonates, and it is expected to become the largest global consumer of polyurethanes by 2015,” says Patrick Thomas, chairman of Bayer MaterialScience. —DEEPTI RAMESH
Cabot Bluestar Breaks Ground on Fumed Silica Plant Cabot Bluestar Chemical (Tianjin, China), a joint venture between Cabot Corp. and China National Bluestar Group (Beijing), says it has broken ground on a previously announced 7,000-m.t./year fumed silica plant at Tianjin. Total investment is about $40 million, the jv says. The plant is due onstream in mid-2010. “With increasing demand in China and throughout the Asia/ Pacific region, this new capacity will allow us to serve as a reliable source of high-quality material for the Bluestar Group as they grow their silicones business, and to serve our other customers in the region,” says Xinsheng Zhang, president of Cabot Ltd., Cabot’s Chinese subsidiary.
Oxea Boosts Butyric Acid Capacity in Texas Oxea (Oberhausen, Germany) says it will start producing butyric acid at the company’s Bay City, TX production site by late 2009 to increase “operational flexibility.” The expansion at Bay City, together with process improvements at the company’s Marl and Oberhausen, Germany plants, will result in a 25%-30% increase in Oxea’s overall output of carboxylic acids. “This expansion project is aligned with Oxea’s strategy to further grow its carboxylic acids businesses through a reliable worldwide supply of raw materials at competitive cost,” the company says. Oxea says that demand for butyric acid has increased “significantly.”
is expected to increase the site’s capacity by 40%, in early 2009 and start up the additional capacity in 2010. The Compiègne site specializes in unsaturated polyester resins, for which strong demand growth is forecast, DSM says. DSM Composite Resins forms part of DSM’s performance materials division.
Air Products Invests in Russia and Poland Air Products says it will install two high-purity nitrogen generators at Alcoa’s aluminum plant at Samara, Russia. The generators are due onstream in 2009. The company also plans to build a state-of-the-art cylinder filling depot in Warsaw, which is due online in 2010. Meanwhile, Air Products says it recently started up a high-purity hydrogen plant at Novaky, Slovakia to supply customers in the Czech Republic, Hungary, Poland, and Slovakia. “Central and Eastern Europe is showing an impressive growth rate,” says Erwin Zwicky, president of Air Products Europe.
DSM Eyes Resins Hike at French Site DSM Composite Resins, a DSM subsidiary, plans to invest € 25 million-€ 30 million ($34 million-$40 million) to expand its Compiègne, France site and develop production of specialty products there, local press reports say. The company has worked on a feasibility study, the reports say. DSM aims to begin construction on the project, which
Residents of Chinese City Protest P-Xylene Plans Residents of Taizhou, China have started an environmental protest campaign against plans led by PetroChina to build a para- xylene plant near the city, reports say. The plant would form part of a petrochemical complex—possibly including an ethylene unit—costing an estimated Rmb60 billion ($8.8 billion), reports add. The project is at the planning stage and has not been approved, the Taizhou municipal authorities say. Campaigners have so far confined their protests to specially created Web sites, but they threaten to take to the streets if the project makes progress. Authorities in Xiamen, China shelved a p-xylene project last year after street demonstrations by residents (C W, June 13, 2007, p. 18).
Borouge Signs Contract for Logistics Hub in China Borouge, an olefins and polyolefins joint venture between Abu Dhabi National Oil Co. (Adnoc) and Borealis, has signed a contract with Enpro Supply Chain Management (Shanghai) to build a logistics hub for Borouge in the Nansha area of Guangzhou, China. The contract “ensures local logistics services” for Borouge’s polyolefin customers in Asia for 10 years from start up of Borouge’s second manufacturing complex in 2010. Borouge is building the second complex, dubbed Borouge 2, at its Ruwais, Abu Dhabi site. Enpro will carry out design and development of the Guangzhou logistics hub, and will operate the facility. The hub will offer services including storage, packaging, and distribution. Enpro will handle and distribute a total volume of about 246,000 m.t./ year of polyolefins at the hub, Borouge says.
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