Belgium’s Solvay to build polyamide compounding unit in Mexico

HOUSTON (ICIS)–Solvay is building a polyamide compounding unit in San Luis Potosi, Mexico, the Belgium-based international chemicals major said on Thursday.

The plant, due to start up in the third quarter of 2017 with an initial capacity of 10,000 tonnes/year, will serve growing automotive and consumer goods markets in Mexico and the Americas, the company said.

Mexico ranks as the second largest producer of automobiles and commercial vehicles in the Americas and is ranked seventh worldwide, Solvay said.

“Many of the world’s top automotive OEMs [original equipment manufacturers] are located in the region, which makes it an ideal base for us to serve both local and US markets and contribute with our solutions to cleaner mobility,” said Vincent Kamel, president of Solvay’s performance polyamides business.

To minimise investment costs and time to market, Solvay will partner with Chunil Engineering, one of its major customers, on the Mexican project. It did not disclose the expected cost.

“Solvay is planning additional investments to serve the NAFTA [North American Free Trade Agreement] market”, it added.

The automotive industry is a major global consumer of petrochemicals which contributes more than a third of the raw material costs of an average vehicle. ICIS tracks the movement of petrochemical raw material costs in auto production both globally and regionally with the weighted ICIS Basket of Automotive Petrochemicals (IBAP).

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