Nippon Shokubai Co. (Osaka, Japan; www.shokubai.co.jp) announces that its Indonesian subsidiary, PT. Nippon Shokubai Indonesia, (NSI), plans to expand its acrylic acid (AA) production.
Nippon Shokubai, at its board meeting held on 29th October, 2018, resolved to give approval to the investment plan at NSI. The plan is to build a new unit with capacity to produce 100,000 metric tons per year (m.t./yr) of AA, which will bring NSI’s total AA production up to 240,000 m.t./yr. The new AA plant will be located at NSI’s existing plant site in Cilegon, Indonesia. Mechanical completion of the new unit is slated for March 2021, with commercial operations expected to begin in November 2021. The company will invest approximately $200 million in building the new plant.
AA, one of the company’s core businesses, shows steady growth of demand as a key material of superabsorbent polymers (SAP) and acrylate. In recent years, the demand and supply balance of AA is highly tight especially in Asia. To accommodate the demand for these products, Nippon Shokubai has studied further expansion of AA.
As a result of the study, Nippon Shokubai has concluded to expand the capacity of NSI, taking into consideration NSI’s location in Asia and the expectation for synergistic effect with the existing plant.
With this new plant at NSI, the group’s global AA production capacity will be 980,000 m.t./yr (540,000 m.t./yr in Japan and 440,000 m.t./yr overseas).