Leading global styrenics player Styrolution (Frankfurt / Germany; www.styrolution.com) has announced a number of global measures aimed at implementing its key strategic priorities. “Only a few months after the closing and official launch of Styrolution,” which was carved out of the styrenics activities of BASF (Ludwigshafen / Germany; www.basf.com) and Ineos (Rolle / Switzerland; www.ineos.com) – see Plasteurope.com of 05.10.2011 – “we are now ready to take some important steps,” group CEO Roberto Gualdoni introduced the changes, which will affect group sites in Germany, South Korea and India.

Styrolution has said that as part of this realignment it will cancel all its offtake of polystyrene and styrene monomer from Ineos’ plant in Marl / Germany by the end of this year in a move aimed at focusing on higher-value materials, including ASA and SAN. The move will see the closure of the site’s 350,000 t/y styrene and 180,000 t/y PS plants and will affect 110 Ineos employees. Explaining the rationale behind the decision, Martin Pugh, president of the group’s EMEA business unit, said, “By terminating our offtake from the Marl plants, we expect to improve the competitive position of our European styrene-based commodity business by maximizing capacity utilization at our other sites.” Customers served by Marl would not be affected, Styrolution added, pointing out that it would provide them with equivalent products from its production sites in Belgium, France and Sweden.

The plans also call for an upgrade of Styrolution’s styrene copolymers production facility at its Ludwigshafen headquarters, output of which is marketed under the “Luran”, “Luran S”, “Terluran HH/HD” and “Terlux” brand names. The group plans to equip the site with modern logistics and process control systems, which will enable it to better service its customers. In addition, it also plans to decouple the existing production and supply chain filling processes, which will significantly enhance both flexibility and supply reliability. The project, which will see the nameplate capacity of the site’s 80,000 t/y ABS line raised by 20%, is scheduled for completion in Q1 2013.

As part of its new strategy, Styrolution is also building an entirely new 40,000 t/y acrylonitrile styrene acrylate (ASA) copolymer line in Ulsan / South Korea, scheduled for commissioning at the beginning of July. Marketed under the “Luran S” trade name, output of the new line is to go towards the Asian automotive and building and construction industries, with a special focus on China.

In India, the German group plans to carry out a debottlenecking at its ABS plant in Vadodara, as part of which it will install a new SAN line and expand the site’s compounding capacity. The move, which is expected to be completed by 2014, will raise the site’s overall output to 110,000 t/y, most of which is earmarked for the domestic market. According to Plasteurope.com’s Polyglobe capacity database (www.polyglobe.net), Styrolution currently has capacity to turn out 20,000 t/y of SAN as well as 30,000 t/y of ABS at the site.