Borealis invests in LDPE plant in Sweden

21 March 2007 15:51  [Source: ICIS news]

LONDON (ICIS news)--Polyolefins major Borealis will invest €370m ($492m) in a 350,000 tonne/year high-pressure, low density polyethylene (LDPE) plant in Stenungsund, western Sweden, the company said on Wednesday.

 

The project would enhance its capability to produce advanced materials for wire and cable applications. A further €42m would be spent at the site on compounding and extrusion equipment.

 

“The investment will strengthen the Stenungsund complex for many years ahead,” said CEO John Taylor.

 

Total PE capacity at the site would be 700,000 tonnes/year.

 

The PE units are fed by a 625,000 tonne/year cracker, which was very flexible in terms of feedstock, added Taylor.

 

Some 230,000 tonnes/year of polyethylene (PE) capacity would be shut down at the site, which consists of 145,000 tonnes/year of old, high-cost LDPE capacity in three lines and a single Unipol gas-phase reactor.

 

The closures would be phased, said Taylor, to give the company time to gain approvals for the materials from the new plant.

 

Borealis would use Basell's Lupotech tubular reactor technology in the new plant, which produces a base LDPE resin that the company would tailor to the wire and cable markets.

 

It already operates an LDPE plant at Schwechat in Austria with the same technology.

 

Taylor said that the wire and cable markets were growing strongly in Europe at present. The new plant would supply special wire and cable grades to all Borealis’s markets, including India and China, he added.

 

Borealis is building a new 330,000 tonne/year Borstar PP plant in Burghausen, Germany, to add more flexible grades to its portfolio. This was due on stream by the end of this year.

 

($1 = €0.75)

By: John Baker
+44 20 8652 3214

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