Shin-Etsu Announces Completion of Shin-Etsu PVC's Expansion Project
Sep 13, 2006
Shin-Etsu Chemical Co., Ltd. (President: Chihiro Kanagawa; Head Office: Tokyo) has announced that it has completed its expansion of the facilities of Shin-Etsu PVC B.V., (Shin-Etsu PVC B.V.: Shin-Etsu Chemical's 100%-owned Group company that began production and sales from January 2001 after the acquisition of the VCM/PVC business owned by Shell Chemical Ltd. and Akzo Nobel Chemical NV) in The Netherlands (President, Fumio Arai), the Shin-Etsu Group's European production and sales base for PVC, and full-scale operation has begun. This expansion increased the production capacity of Shin-Etsu PVC's Pernis Plant (near Rotterdam) from 350,000 to 450,000 tons/year, and it was completed earlier than the scheduled completion date of October 2006. The investment amount for this expansion was about ˆ50 million (about 7.5 billion yen).
This plant expansion was carried out in anticipation of strong growing demand for PVC in Europe in the future for such PVC application areas as in pipes used for water and sewage systems, as well as in applications for such products as window frames that require insulation properties as an energy-saving measure. Previously, Shin-Etsu PVC expanded its VCM (vinyl chloride monomer) production capacity from 500,000 to 620,000 tons/year in November 2003.
Shin-Etsu Chemical is producing PVC using a tripolar production structure - the U.S., Europe and Japan - and its total global production capacity has now reached 3.24 million tons with Shin-Etsu PVC's expansion in capacity.
Shin-Etsu is currently constructing large-scale integrated PVC manufacturing facilities, from electrolysis to VCM, and to PVC, in the State of Louisiana, in the U.S., which will increase its U.S. Group company Shintech's PVC production capacity from 2.04 million to 2.64 million tons/year.
