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AkzoNobel grows around the world

AkzoNobel has announced three separate expansions covering Europe, Asia and South America in recent weeks

GLOBAL

AkzoNobel has announced three separate expansions covering Europe, Asia and South America in recent weeks. Its Eka Chemicals subsidiary is invest about €80 million to build a new 'Chemical Island' facility to serve a pulp mill in Brazil, while there will also be increases in capacity for both monochloroacetic acid (MCA) in the Netherlands and China and for dimethylether (DME) in the Netherlands.

Under a 15-year agreement, Eka Chemicals will supply, store and handle all the chemicals for the 1.5 million tones/year Suzano Papel e Celulose's Suzano Maranhão pulp mill at Imperatriz in Maranhão state. This is due onstream in Q4 2013.

The 'Chemical Island' is the second of its kind to be announced in Brazil in the past year. Eka Chemicals already runs Chemical Islands and other production units at customer sites in Brazil, plus bleaching and paper chemical plants in Jacareí, Rio de Janeiro, Três Lagoas and Jundiaí.

AkzoNobel as a whole employs over 2,700 people in Brazil and had revenue near €850 million in 2010, mostly generated from local demand. It aims to achieve revenue of €1.5 billion/year in the Brazilian market by 2015.

AkzoNobel, seen here painting favelas, is highly active in Brazil

AkzoNobel has also commissioned its expanded MCA facility at Delfzijl, which now has over 100,000 tonnes/year. In parallel, it is to increase MCA capacity at Taixing, China, from 60,000 tonnes/year to the same level. They will be the largest plants of their type in the world.

This expansion is driven mainly by increasing demand for high purity MCA in uses like agrochemicals, carboxymethylcellulose, surfactants and thioglycolic acid, the company said. Both plants use a proprietary process that is said to give a wide range of consistent and high quality MCA, with very low levels of the main by-product DCA where required.

Separately, AkzoNobel Industrial Chemicals is to increase DME capacity at its Rotterdam-Europoort plant in the Netherlands from 20,000 to 45,000 tonnes/year. This will be available in Q4. DME is mainly used as an environmentally friendly propellant for aerosols in paints, polyurethane foams and cosmetics, as well as in AkzoNobel's patented DeMythe LDD technology for the processing of animal skins.

 

From Online Issue: February 2012