Company News

Materials suppliers adjust their supplies
Due to the growth of the polyamide markets in Eastern Europe, Latin America and Asia, Rhodia Polyamide will restructure its European nylon business, which includes reducing its costs by EUR40 million/year by 2010. The company will close its Ceriano facility in Italy by mid-2009, which could affect 212 jobs, increase production capacity at the Lyon Belle-Etoile facility in France and the Gorzow facility in Poland and transfer all its European research, development and applications teams to a single site in Lyon.

Meanwhile, Ineos Nova has reduced its European PS production by 30% due to “record low margins that are unsustainable”. Earlier on Dow Chemical reduced its European styrene production by 40%, following a 15% reduction in its European PS production. Its European production of Styrofoam EPS building insulation has also been reduced by 20%.

Due to high material and energy costs, BASF has cut its production of caprolactam, used to make PA6, by 35% at its American, Belgian and German sites.

Bayer MaterialScience will build a 300,000 tonnes/year toluene diisocyanate (TDI) plant at its Dormagen plant in Germany to replace the existing TDI plants at the Dormagen and Brunsbüttel sites. Diphenylmethane diisocyanate (MDI) production at Brunsbüttel will be expanded to a total capacity of 400,000 tonnes/year by making use of the existing capacity of 160,000 tonnes and the existing infrastructure and by converting the present TDI plant to an MDI facility. The two projects are scheduled to be completed by 2013 at a total investment cost of about EUR300 million.

This news came as the company started up a 350,000 tonnes/year MDI complex at the Bayer Integrated Site Shanghai (BISS) in China and it started work on a 250,000 tonnes/year TDI plant on the site, scheduled to come on stream in 2010.