France's Arkema to boost production of fluorochemicals in China

11 October 2011 07:54  [Source: ICIS news]

SHANGHAI (ICIS)--French chemical producer Arkema is planning to boost production of fluorogas and refrigerant blends in China during 2012, it said on Tuesday.

Capacity of HFC-125 fluorogas will be boosted by 30% to reach 20,000 tonnes/year whilst a new plant for production of HFC R-410A refrigerant fluid blends is also to be constructed.

The fluorogas plant is scheduled for startup in late 2012 with the fluid blend facility coming on stream in the first half of 2012. Both plants will be located at Arkema's Changshu site 120km south of Shanghai.

The plants are owned by Arkema Daikin Advanced Fluorochemicals, a joint venture which is 60% owned by Arkema and 40% by Daikin. Daikin is a global manufacturer of air conditioning systems.

The expansions were revealed at a news conference in Shanghai where the creation of a €10m ($13.7m) new research and development centre at Changshu was also revealed.

Arkema said that two new plants will be inaugurated on 12 October, one for the production of Kynar fluorinated polymers and the other for the production of Coatex rheology additives.

Arkema CEO, Thierry Le Henaff, said the plants will help the company achieve its target of 25% sales in Asia by 2015 compared with 18% in 2010.

($1 = €0.73)

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Author: Wil Beacham

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