PLANTS AND PROJECTS

Dow Opens First Commercial Plant to Produce Versify Polymers

The Dow Chemical Co. (Midland, MI; www.dow.com) has launched the first commercial plant for its new family of specialty propylene-ethylene copolymers manufactured under the Versify tradename. Launched in February 2004, these plastomers and elastomers offer improved flexibility, softness and other characteristics for flexible and rigid packaging producers and manufacturers of thermoplastic elastomers and olefins.

Huntsman to Build World's Largest Polyethylene Plant

In 2005, Huntsman, Inc. (Salt Lake City, UT; www.huntsman.com) will launch construction of a 400,000 metric ton/yr low density polyethylene (LDPE) manufacturing facility in Teesside, U.K., the product of which will be used primarily in packaging applications. The $360 million plant is slated to start up in late 2007 and will use ethylene made at Huntsman's Wilton, U.K., site.

UOP Funded by NIST to Develop Methane to Methanol Process

UOP LLC (Des Plaines, IL; www.uop. com) has been granted three-year, $5 million award by the National Institute of Standards and Technology (www.atp.nist.gov) to commercialize new metal-peroxo catalysts for liquidphase oxidation of methane to mcthanol. This low-temperature process is expected to lower the cost of methanol from $80/ton to $58/ton, allowing for the "monetization" of remote natural gas and providing a new precursor for chemicals such as ethylene and propylene.

Wacker Expands Polysilicon Capacity at Burghausen, Germany

Wacker Chemie GmbH (Munich, Germany; www.wacker.com) plans to expand polysilicon capacity at its Burghausen, Germany, site in 2006 and 2007 by 500 metric ton/yr, and 1,000 metric ton/yr, respectively, for a final site output of up to 6,500 metric tons/yr of polysilicon. The investment, totaling approximately $92.5 million, aims to release bottlenecks among global photovoltaics and electronics producers. To this end, Wacker is developing a novel fluidized-bed process for producing granular polysilicon that uses trichlorosilane as a raw material.

Cyclics Completes $68 Million Financial Package for PBT Facility

Cyclics Europe GmbH, a subsidiary of Cyclics Corp. (Huntsville, AL; www.cyclics.com) has completed a financial package for the construction of a $68 million plant in Schwarzheide, Germany, to produce CBT, resins, a line of polybutylcne tercphthalatc (PBT) systems that polymerize like thermosets, but have the material properties of thermoplastics. Slated for completion by year-end, the plant, Cyclics first for CBT resin, will have an initial capacity of 2,500 metric ton/yr, expanding to 5,000 metric ton/yr during 2006.

[Sidebar]

China Continues to Draw Chemical Industry Investors

A number of chemical giants are stepping up activity in China, stalling with the nation's PetroChina Jilin Petrochemical Co. (Jilin City), which has launched a 128,700 metric ton/yr n-butanols plant using the low-pressure oxo (LPO) process developed by Davy Process Technology Ltd. (London, U.K.; www.davyprotech. com) and Union Carbide (Midland, MI), a Dow subsidiary (Midland, MI; www.dow.com). Bayer MaterialScience AG (Leverkusen, Germany; www.bayermaterialscience. com) is building two new plants in Shanghai Chemical Industry Park (Caojing) - a $100 million, 50,000-metric ton/yr facility for the production of hexamethylene diisocyanate (HDI), a precursor of aliphatic polyisocyanates, which are raw materials for polyurethane-based coatings. This plant is slated to come online in 2006 with an initial capacity of 30,000 metric ton/yr HDI. The facility will make diphenylmethane diisocyanate (MDI), a raw material for polyurethane. Corning Inc. (Corning, NY; www.corning.com) plans to build a $750 million liquid crystal display (LCD) glass substrate plant at Central Taiwan Science Park in Taichung. The plant is expected to go online in the third quarter of 2005. Asia's growing demand for fiberglass has prompted PPG Industries to build a second fiberglass-manufacturing furnace at its Kunshan, China-based plant. The unit is expected to go live in 2006 with a capacity of 38,000 metric ton/yr, boosting the site's capacity to 120,000 metric ton/yr of fiberglass, primarily to serve the electronics and thermoplastics industries.