APIC '08: Hanwha's Ningbo PVC project on track

28 May 2008 05:19  [Source: ICIS news]

SINGAPORE (ICIS news)--South Korea's Hanwha Chemical is on track to start up its 300,000 tonne/year polyvinyl chloride (PVC) project at Ningbo, in China in the fourth quarter of 2010, and will initially focus on the Chinese market, a source close to the company said on Wednesday.

"We expect Chinese demand for PVC to continue growing at above 10%/year in the next few years," the source said, on the sidelines of the Asia Petrochemical Industry Conference (APIC) in Singapore.

Currently, Hanwha was not exporting to China because the netback from the Chinese import market was less than that to other regions, the source said.

"We have very limited export volumes, as demand in South Korea is growing at 2-3%/year, so we prefer to target markets like Turkey, India, the Middle East and Africa, where we can get higher prices than in China," the source added.

However, having a production facility in China would improve the economics for selling into China, he added.

The Ningbo complex would also produce 300,000 tonnes/year of vinyl chloride monomer (VCM) and 500,000 tonnes/year of ethylene dichloride (EDC).

"We plan to source our ethylene feedstock supply from our South Korean supplier," the source said.

For more on VCM, EDC and PVC visit ICIS chemical intelligence
To discuss issues facing the chemical industry go to ICIS connect
ICIS custom publishing and The Chemical Daily have produced an official 84-page special publication on Asian petrochemicals for the APIC event

By: Prema Viswanathan
+65 6780 4359

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