Almost one year after a fire seriously damaged its complex in Nanyo / Japan, Tosoh Corporation (Tokyo / Japan; www.tosoh.com) has touted plans to raise output at the site’s number 3 vinyl chloride monomer plant. The building phase of the 200,000 t/y capacity expansion will kick off in November this year, with completion scheduled for October 2014. All in all, the project will cost Tosoh about JPY 5 bn (EUR 50m).

The Japanese group said it had been mulling options to rebuild its VCM capacity after a deadly explosion and fire rocked the site in November last year – see Plasteurope.com of 17.11.2011. Since then the site’s number 2 plant has been offline and it remains unclear whether the facility will resume operations in the future.

Tosoh said the expansion would result in higher production and sales of VCM and caustic soda, which in turn would lift the profitability of its vinyl isocyanate chain. The expansion will also help the company stabilise its VCM supplies to its domestic and overseas PVC production and sales operations. It would, for instance, help group subsidiary Taiyo Vinyl to resume full operations at its plants, two of which have been running at half their capacity utilisation since the summer, Plasteurope.com's Polyglobe capacity database (www.polyglobe.net) shows. Some of the VCM will also be sold directly to players on the Asian market, the group said.

The group’s number 1 VCM plant in Nanyo currently turns out 250,000 t/y. In addition, Tosoh also produces VCM at its complex in Yokkaichi to the tune of 250,000 t/y. Once the expansion at Nanyo’s number 3 plant is completed, this facility alone will turn out 600,000 t/y of VCM.