German chemicals giant BASF (Ludwigshafen; www.basf.com) in early October inaugurated its largest single investment in India – at a price tag of EUR 150m. Located in Dahej, Gujarat state, the new integrated hub includes a polyurethane manufacturing facility as well as plants producing care chemicals and polymer dispersions.

The PU plant includes what the group says is South Asia’s first MDI splitter, capable of processing crude MDI. Indian authorities report that the facility has a nameplate capacity of 80,000 t/y. The hub also includes capacities for 100,000 t/y of polyols and is said to be capable of turning out 90,000 t/y of ready-to-use PU systems, while its prepolymers capability is pegged at 35,000 t/y. BASF said the decision to produce its “Elastollan” TPU (nameplate capacity of 7,000 t/y), its “Cellasto” microcellular PU components (capacity for 20m units a year) and polyurethane systems in Dahej stemmed from rising demand from the appliances, footwear, automotive, construction and furniture segments.

The Indian site currently employs about 500 workers, of which 200 are directly working for BASF. The German group said it plans to hire an additional 50 employees “in the near future”. The Dahej investment is part of BASF’s plans to inject more than EUR 10 bn into Asia Pacific between 2013 and 2020, by which time it plans to have reached a total regional sales level of EUR 25 bn (for details, see Plasteurope.com of 07.06.2013).