Bayer ramps up capacity at Tarragona MDI plant by 50,000 tons

13-Dec-06

In response to the growing demand for MDI in Eastern and Western Europe and the Middle East, Bayer MaterialScience has completed the expansion of its production facilities for intermediates carbon monoxide (CO) and methylene diphenyl diamine (MDA) and methylene diphenyl diisocyanate (MDI) in Tarragona, Spain. MDI capacity has been ramped up by 50,000 tpa to 150,000 tpa. With this expansion, the company now has global production capacity of 1.1 mln tpa. Bayer MaterialScience operates production facilities for MDI in Brunsbüttel, Baytown and New Martinsville. Bayer has also carried out expansion at other MDI production facilities: In Krefeld-Uerdingen (Germany) capacity was expanded by 36,000 tons to 200,000 tpa, this year. At its integrated Shanghai site, Bayer MaterialScience is currently building world-scale production facilities capable of producing 350,000 tons of MDI each year. A splitter used to extract monomeric and polymeric MDI from crude MDI that has a plant capacity of 80,000 tpa went into operation in Shanghai in June 2006.