Asian PU merger starts operations

Japan’s Mitsui Chemicals and South Korea-based SKC Co, which early this year merged their polyurethane (PU) businesses http://www.plasticsandrubberasia.com/jan2015/company3.html, have announced that Mitsui Chemicals & SKC Polyurethanes Inc. (MCNS), an equally-owned joint venture of the two companies, has started operations.

Headquartered in South Korea, MCNS, as a global comprehensive manufacturer of polyurethane materials, will capitalise on the premium strengths of its two parent companies to “strengthen competitiveness in existing business”, “explore new business chances globally”, and “maximise synergy in marketing, R&D, and production”. In line with its basic strategies, MCNS says it will create more customer value through providing high quality products and services to become a “leading global leading company in the PU industry”.

In fiscal 2020, MCNS is planning to achieve target sales of US$2 billion and earnings before tax (EBT) of US$150 million.

Production facilities integrated in the new joint venture are TDI plants in Omuta, Japan, (120,000 tonnes/year) and Kashima, Japan, (117,000 tonnes/year, to be shut down in 2016); MDI plants in Omuta, Japan, (60,000 tonnes/year, to be shut down in 2016) and Yeosu, South Korea (200,000 tonnes/year at an existing joint venture: Kumho Mitsui Chemicals); and polyol plants in Ulsan, South Korea (180,000 tonnes/year), and Nagoya, Japan, (50,000 tonnes/year).

The new joint venture also operates system houses in China in Tianjin, Suzhou, Foshan and Beijing, as well as in Thailand, Indonesia, Malaysia, the US, and Poland. Other plants include the 8,000-tonne/year biomass-based polyol plant that will start up in 2015 at Vithal Caster Polyols in Gujarat, India. This company is a joint venture between Mitsui Chemicals, Japanese castor oil producer Itoh Oil Chemical and Indian castor oil maker Jayant Agro-Organics. It is expected that this joint venture will supply cost competitive bio-polyol, thereby allowing Mitsui to target further expansion of its sales in automotive applications through six of its systems houses throughout Asia.