The Chinese city of Chonqing has signed a memorandum of understanding with Sabic Innovative Plastics (Pittsfield, Massachusetts / USA; www.sabic-ip.com) for the construction of a new polycarbonate compounds (“Lexan”) plant, scheduled to be commissioned in Chonqing in 2013. The facility’s nameplate capacity was not disclosed in the MoU, although Sabic did say the plant’s output is to go towards meeting rising demands of the E&E industry in Chonqing, a city with 23m inhabitants.

Sabic IP says this is its third large PC investment in China. At the end of 2010, the group commissioned a Lexan compounding facility in Nansha, and a similar plant is scheduled to start up in Shanghai in H1 2012. In addition, Sabic IP also manufactures optical and textured PC film in Nansha. Together with Sinopec (Beijing / China; www.sinopec.com), the US group is also building a new 260,000 t/y plant for base PC, scheduled to come on stream in 2014 – see Plasteurope.com of 23.05.2011.