LG Chem Ltd. has opened a PVC resin plant in China — a $300 million facility capable of producing almost 800 million pounds of material a year.
Seoul, South Korea-based LG Chem plans to increase capacity at the site in Bohai by more than 100 million pounds by 2008, according to a Sept. 7 Korean Times report. The plant also will produce vinyl chloride monomer and ethylene dichloride feedstocks.
Chinese PVC demand has been growing at double-digit rates because of new construction and infrastructure projects. Resin makers have responded with plans to add more than 14 billion pounds of PVC capacity between 2005 and 2008.
The new LG Chem plant is expected to use ethylene as its PVC feedstock, instead of coal-derived acetylene, which is used by many Chinese PVC plants. Coal is not used in the process elsewhere in the world because of its potential environmental impact.
LG Chem ranks as one of the world’s largest PVC makers, with total annual capacity of about 2.5 billion pounds. The firm, which makes several other commodity and engineering plastics, as well as specialty chemicals, posted sales of almost $9.9 billion in 2006.
