Turkey’s Evyap to start up oleochemicals plant in mid-’14

Nurluqman Suratman

26-Aug-2013

Tanuy Roy, director of Evyap Asia

By Nurluqman Suratman

SINGAPORE (ICIS)–Turkey-based Evyap Sabun is expected to start up its new oleochemicals facility at Pasir Gudang in Johor, Malaysia, by the middle of next year, a senior company executive said on Monday.

The new first-phase project, with an investment of about Malaysian ringgit (M$) 500m ($152m), will be able to produce around 400,000 tonnes/year of finished products, Tanuj Roy, the director of Evyap Asia, told ICIS.

About half of the plant’s overall annual capacity will be for the production of fatty acids, according to Roy.

Other products include glycerine, hydrogenated products, specialised animal feed as well as toilet and multi-purpose soaps, he said.

“It’s an investment in a totally new business [oleochemicals]. It’s also going to be shift for the company from one feedstock to another, from tallow [rendered form of beef ] to a vegetable oil base,” Roy said.

“This is also the first green-field investment in Malaysia in more than two decades in the oleochemical space,” he added.

The Pasir Gudang facility will be the company’s third manufacturing site and its first oleochemicals production unit.

Evyap Sabun currently has a factory in Ayazaga and  hygiene care  plant and a cosmetics factory in Tuzla in Turkey as well as a plant in Alexandria, Egypt.

Most of the new plant’s output will be exported to southern Europe, the Middle East, North Africa as well as Asia, according to Roy.

The plant, which will use palm oil as its primary feedstock, is expected to run at full capacity  soon after it starts commercial production in the June next year, he said.

Demand for fatty acids globally is growing steadily at around 8-10% a year and this is expected to persist into the next decade, according to Roy.

“There is a continuous inclination to shift from a synthetic base to vegetable-based fatty acid”, with consuming industries such as paper, coatings and resins, lubricants, rubber and personal care are also registering steady year-on-year growth, he said.

“We are already tying up with large consumers and distributors and we foresee to move forward and be able to establish ourselves as a quality manufactures of customised products with product purity that the industry has yet to see,” he added.

Looking ahead, the company is planning to double its fatty acid production via an expansion project at its Pasir Gudang site once the first phase is completed and operations has been stabilised, according to Roy.

The company has acquired 55 acres of prime industrial land at the Tanjung Langsat industrial estate in Pasir Gudang and is currently using about 32 acres, with the remaining land allotted for the second phase of the project, he added.

Apart from fatty acids, the second phase is expected to include new production capacities for “fast-moving consumer goods” such as toilet soap, toiletries and hair care products, according to Roy.

($1 = M$3.3)

Read John Richardson and Malini Hariharan’s blog – Asian Chemical Connections

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