Bayer MaterialScience (Leverkusen / Germany; www.bayerbms.com) has started the ball rolling on a planned EUR 150m, 300,000 t/y production facility for polyurethane feedstock TDI at Dormagen / Germany. The project, first announced in 2008, is part of a plan to upgrade capacity for TDI and MDI at German sites – see Plasteurope.com of 15.09.2008. Construction will begin following approval by local authorities. An initial “scoping” hearing, to which authorities will be invited, is scheduled for April. Start-up is slated for 2014, a year behind the original planning.

When the new facility, which will use Bayer’s new proprietary gas-phase phosgenation process, is up and running, smaller TDI units at Dormagen and at Brunsbüttel / Germany will be shut down. Dormagen then will become the group’s single European TDI production site. The new unit is planned to be built at the site of an old coal-fired power plant. A new coal power plant is in planning, but has been held up by environment protests.

At the end of 2010, BMS will start up a 250,000 t/y gas-phase phosgenation plant at its Caojing production complex near Shanghai / China. At the recent Bayer annual results press conference, BMS chief executive Patrick Thomas told Plasteurope.com that demand for TDI has recovered.