Shortly before Christmas, SKC (Seoul / South Korea; www.skc.kr/english) and Mitsui Chemicals (Tokyo / Japan; www.mitsuichem.com) signed a joint venture agreement to consolidate their respective polyurethane material businesses. The deal foresees the establishment of a 50:50 joint venture, whose name is yet to be determined, by 1 April this year. The new company will be based in South Korea.

The combined business will operate plants across Japan and South Korea, and will have a total TDI capacity of 237,000 t/y (located at plants in Omuta and Kashima / Japan) as well as overall MDI output of 260,000 t/y (spread across facilities in Omuta and Yeosu / South Korea). The jv’s polyols capacity will come to about 280,000 t/y, spread across facilities in Ulsan / South Korea as well as Nagoya and Tokuyama / Japan. It will also include a pilot plant in Gujarat / India, which currently is capable of producing about 8,000 t/y of biobased polyols.

Once the authorities approve the merge, the combined business is expected to post revenues of about USD 1.5 bn in 2015. When signing the agreement, SKC chief executive Jang Suk Park and Mitsui CEO Tsutomu Tannowa said they expect sales to grow to USD 2 bn by 2020.

Early last year, Mitsui announced plans to shutter some of its older PU feedstock plants (see Plasteurope.com of 13.02.2014). It seems like these ideas have now been dismissed as a result of the merger with SKC. Also last year, the Japanese company signed an agreement licensing its PU technology to Sabic (Riyadh / Saudi Arabia; www.sabic.com) – see Plasteurope.com of 01.03.2012.