Bayer's MDI plant to be the world's largest

08-Jul-05

Bayer, in the process of forming a Bayer MaterialScience for China in August, has announced an increase in capacity of its MDI plant. The capacity of the plant at Caojing, near Shanghai, for the manufacture of PU intermediate MDI has been scaled by 12,000 tpa. Planned to start up in 2008, revised capacity of the MDI plant will be 350,000 tpa, which is 120,000 tpa more than what was originally projected. Output of this facility, predicted to be the world' largest unit, will serve the swelling domestic market. Bayer has also recently commissioned a 40,000tpa polycarbonate (PC) compounding plant at the same site which is linked to a 100,000 tpa PC polymer plant at the site due for completion next year. The commissioning of this plant accompanies the successful start up of two other major projects: * BASF-YPC, a joint venture with Sinopec, has successfully started commercial production at the new $2.9bn (€2.4bn) petrochemical complex to produce 1.7 million tpa of chemicals and polymers. The complex represents the largest single investment in BASF's 140-year history and supports the company's goal of winning 20% of its sales in Asia Pacific by 2010. * The 900,000 tpa cracker by Secco, a three-way collaboration between BP, Sinopec and Shanghai Petrochemicals. The Shanghai cracker feeds a 600,000 tpa polyethylene plant as well as 250,000 tpa of polypropylene and 300,000 tpa of polystyrene.