27 November 2006 – BayerMaterialScience took top spot in the global polycarbonate market this year with the recent opening of its 100,000tpa plant at Caoijing, near Shanghai, the company says. The opening of the facility in September, part of a $1.8bn investment at the site, took BMS's total capacitý for the polymer to 1.1m tpa, Bayer Group chairman Werner Wenning said in Leverkusen today.
Already, Chinese demand for polycarbonate, which is growing at up to 18% annually at present, has meant that the unit is fully loaded and the company is already looking to the second stage of its polycarbonate build-up at the site, according to Dr Hagen Noerenberg, Chairman of the Board of Management of Bayer MaterialScience.
Along with polyurethanes, polycarbonate is one of the key components in the BMS business, which was hit by rising feedstock costs in the third quarter and saw its EBIT before special items fall by 15% from the same period of last year, at €427m.
Cost pressures facing the BMS portfolio include propylene and toluene, the latter affected by rising demand from the gasoline market which is seeing restrictions on other octane enhancers, noted Noerenberg, who retires at the end of the year to be succeeded by former ICI and Huntsman senior executive Patrick Thomas.
