BASF / GE PLASTICS
Two engineering plastics majors to team up in new European PBT venture
In a move as yet without precedent in the European plastics industry, two rival manufacturers, BASF AG (D-67056 Ludwigshafen) and GE Plastics BV (PO Box 117, NL-4600 AC Bergen op Zoom) will team up to build a joint production facility for engineering plastics. Construction is to begin in 1995 on the 60,000 t/y polybutylene terephthalate (PBT) plant at BASF's Schwarzheide complex in eastern Germany. Startup is slated for late 1996. The state of Brandenburg has promised DM 23m in subsidies for the DM 100m project, which will create 80 jobs.
BASF will provide technology for the facility and supply the 1.4 butanediol feedstock from Ludwigshafen. The other major feedstock, DMT, will be bought in. The 50:50 joint venture, to be known as BASF-GE Schwarzheide GmbH & Co KG, will fund the building costs and all subsequent capital investment, including further development of technology. BASF and GE Plastics – which is building its first PBT plant in Europe – each will take half the output for compounding in its own plants and each will market product independently under its own trade names, "Ultradur" and "Ultrablend" (BASF) and "Valox" and "Xenoy" (GEP). BASF plans to compound PBT in a new facility at the rapidly expanding Schwarzheide site (BASF Schwarzheide GmbH, D-01987 Schwarzheide), now being expanded to accommodate the new polymer.
GEP will split compounding activities between its Bergen op Zoom complex and a new unit in Spain, to be started up in November. Both the US and the German groups are leading players in their respective markets. Although without local production units, General Electric's plastics subsidiary has maintained a high profile in the European market. It had considered building a plant in Spain, however, the tie-up with BASF in Germany proved to be more attractive for a number of reasons. As senior managing director for Europe, Uwe S. Wascher, pointed out at a news conference at Schwarzheide, the two companies have cooperated successfully in the past; since 1983, BASF has exclusively supplied butanediol feedstock to GEP's US production.
BASF's capacities for PBT at Ludwigshafen are being run flat out, but Dr. Jürgen Hambrecht, head of engineering plastics, said building a new plant on its own would have been "a considerable financial risk", as a capacity of 50,000 tonnes or more would be needed to achieve an optimum cost/benefit ratio. While acknowledging that the new PBT plant will benefit from the experience of both partners, Hambrecht remarked that its design "utilises BASF's considerable experience in plastics process development and optimisation". The process control system will allow one plant to produce both low-viscosity grades for injection moulding and highviscosity grades for extrusion.
The new jv is predicting growth rates of 10% annually for PBT in Europe, a vision competitor DuPont obviously shares. This US group also recently announced plans for a new 25,000 t/y plant somewhere in Europe. In addition to PBT's high rigidity and strength, its dimensional stability, resistance to heat and chemicals and its good processing properties that have made it so attractive to the automobile and mechanical engineering, electrical and electronics industries, BASF notes that compounding can alter the property profile to serve a wide range of customised applications, for example through the addition of glass fibres, pigments, flameproofing agents and other polymers.
READER SERVICE: Press conference speeches by Dr. Hambrecht and Wascher, with further details on the Schwarzheide jv: PIE-No. 36844.
BASF will provide technology for the facility and supply the 1.4 butanediol feedstock from Ludwigshafen. The other major feedstock, DMT, will be bought in. The 50:50 joint venture, to be known as BASF-GE Schwarzheide GmbH & Co KG, will fund the building costs and all subsequent capital investment, including further development of technology. BASF and GE Plastics – which is building its first PBT plant in Europe – each will take half the output for compounding in its own plants and each will market product independently under its own trade names, "Ultradur" and "Ultrablend" (BASF) and "Valox" and "Xenoy" (GEP). BASF plans to compound PBT in a new facility at the rapidly expanding Schwarzheide site (BASF Schwarzheide GmbH, D-01987 Schwarzheide), now being expanded to accommodate the new polymer.
GEP will split compounding activities between its Bergen op Zoom complex and a new unit in Spain, to be started up in November. Both the US and the German groups are leading players in their respective markets. Although without local production units, General Electric's plastics subsidiary has maintained a high profile in the European market. It had considered building a plant in Spain, however, the tie-up with BASF in Germany proved to be more attractive for a number of reasons. As senior managing director for Europe, Uwe S. Wascher, pointed out at a news conference at Schwarzheide, the two companies have cooperated successfully in the past; since 1983, BASF has exclusively supplied butanediol feedstock to GEP's US production.
BASF's capacities for PBT at Ludwigshafen are being run flat out, but Dr. Jürgen Hambrecht, head of engineering plastics, said building a new plant on its own would have been "a considerable financial risk", as a capacity of 50,000 tonnes or more would be needed to achieve an optimum cost/benefit ratio. While acknowledging that the new PBT plant will benefit from the experience of both partners, Hambrecht remarked that its design "utilises BASF's considerable experience in plastics process development and optimisation". The process control system will allow one plant to produce both low-viscosity grades for injection moulding and highviscosity grades for extrusion.
The new jv is predicting growth rates of 10% annually for PBT in Europe, a vision competitor DuPont obviously shares. This US group also recently announced plans for a new 25,000 t/y plant somewhere in Europe. In addition to PBT's high rigidity and strength, its dimensional stability, resistance to heat and chemicals and its good processing properties that have made it so attractive to the automobile and mechanical engineering, electrical and electronics industries, BASF notes that compounding can alter the property profile to serve a wide range of customised applications, for example through the addition of glass fibres, pigments, flameproofing agents and other polymers.
READER SERVICE: Press conference speeches by Dr. Hambrecht and Wascher, with further details on the Schwarzheide jv: PIE-No. 36844.
31.10.1994 Plasteurope.com [21124]
Published on 31.10.1994