Japan’s Tosoh restarts aniline, TDI, MDI units at Nanyo

06 December 2011 09:37  [Source: ICIS news]

TOKYO (ICIS)--Japan’s Tosoh Corp has restarted its aniline, methylene diphenyl diisocyanate (MDI) and toluene diisocyanate (TDI) facilities at the Nanyo complex after they remained shut for three weeks, a company source said on Tuesday.

The facilities were shut on 13 November because of an explosion at the vinyl chloride monomer (VCM) facility at the same site.

The company restarted the 16,000 Nm3/h carbon monoxide, the 400,000 tonne/year MDI plant and the 25,000 tonne/year TDI unit on 3 December, while the 300,000 tonne/year aniline facility resumed operations on 5 December, the source said.

The source declined to state the current operating rates of the plants.

“They were only recently restarted. We would like to ramp up (the operating rates) gradually,” the source said in Japanese.

Tosoh’s No 2 VCM unit is believed to have been badly damaged by the explosion causing the shutdown of its No 1 and No 3 VCM facilities as well as that of its polyvinyl chloride (PVC) unit at the Nanyo complex.

Local authorities are investigating the cause of the explosion.

For more on TDI and MDI visit ICIS chemical intelligence

By: Tomomi Yokomura
+65 6780 4359

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