Taiwan’s Loyal Group to start up Panjin EPS plant in June

03 May 2012 07:05  [Source: ICIS news]

SINGAPORE (ICIS)--Taiwan’s Loyal Group plans to start up its 150,000 tonne/year expandable polystyrene (EPS) plant at Panjin in China's Liaoning province in the first half of June, a company source said on Thursday.

It started up a 120,000 tonne/year EPS plant at Ningbo in Zhejiang province on 27 April, but has not been running it at 100% because of weak demand and oversupply, the source added.

Some market players said the operating rate of the plant might be at around 50%.

The downturn in China’s real estate industry this year caused EPS demand from the outer wall insulation sector to be weaker than in 2011.

Domestic EPS production in January-April 2012 was at 855,000 tonnes compared with 943,000 tonnes during the same period last year, according to Chemease, an ICIS service in China.

In addition, EPS plant start-ups this year are worsening the supply situation. About 420,000 tonnes of new capacity came on line in January-April this year, Chemease data showed.

Loyal Group has six plants with a total capacity of 1.85m tonnes/year in China and its products account for 40% of the domestic market share for EPS, according to Chemease.

By: Rita Wu

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