Nippon Gohsei Plans EVOH Site in the UK

24 December 2001 00:00  [Source: ICB Americas]

BP and Nippon Synthetic Chemical Industry (Nippon Gohsei) have finalized an agreement under which Nippon Gohsei will construct a 15,000-metric- ton-per-year plant for ethylene-vinyl alcohol copolymer (EVOH) at BP's site at Saltend, near Hull, northeast England.

The $95 million plant, which is scheduled to come on stream in late 2003, will be the first Japanese chemicals investment in the UK.

The unit, which will be owned and operated by Nippon Gohsei, will be supplied with vinyl acetate monomer from BP's new 250,000 ton-per-year VAM plant at Saltend, which started production this month. Ethylene will be supplied through a recently completed extension of a pipeline between Grangemouth, Scotland, and Teesside, northeast England.

European sales of EVOH are ex-pected to grow at an annual rate of 15 percent because of strong demand as an environmentally friendly alternative to existing gas-barrier materials in food packaging and gasoline tanks.

Eval Europe, a subsidiary of Ku-raray of Japan, Nippon Gohsei's main competitor in the global EVOH market, is presently doubling its annual capacity for the copolymer at Antwerp, Bel-gium, to 24,000 tons.

Meanwhile, BP has agreed to sell its European butyl acetates and isopropyl acetate business to Ineos, which operates on behalf of BP, an 85,000-ton-per-year n-butyl/isobutyl plant at Ineos's Antwerp site. The sale includes the plant, as well as customer lists for the solvents.

BP recently brought on stream at Saltend a 220,000-ton-per-year plant for ethyl acetates, which are sold into the same segment of the solvents market as butyl and isopropyl acetates.

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