Mitsui Chemicals (Tokyo / Japan; www.mitsuichem.com) will build a new plant to produce long glass fibre-reinforced PP (LGFPP) at its Chinese subsidiary Mitsui Advanced Composites (Zhongshan) in Zhongshan, Guangdong province. The Zhongshan-based company is a joint venture between Mitsui Chemicals (50%), Prime Polymer (Tokyo / Japan; www.primepolymer.co.jp) (20%) and SCG Chemicals Singapore (Singapore; www.scgchemicals.com) (20%).

The plant, which will add to Mitsui's other LGFPP facilities in Japan and the US, will have a capacity of 3,500 t/y, taking the company's total global production to 10,500 t/y. Completion is tentatively scheduled for February 2020 with operations due to start in September 2020.

Developed by Prime Polymer and made by melting and mixing PP resin with long glass fibres, Mitsui's LGFPP is a lightweight composite, which is said to provide a good balance between hardness and impact resistance. Mitsui said demand is rising for fibre-reinforced resins as the trend for automotive lightweighting continues to grow and demand for materials to substitute metals expands. It added that its LGFPP is being used in areas such as the unpainted interior of rear car doors.