The Ј65m plant will produce 15,000tpa of Soarnol

The UK’s new trade minister Douglas Alexander has opened Nippon Gohsei’s new EVOH plant in Saltend, Yorkshire.

Nippon Gohsei UK managing director Naoaki Takahashi said: “I am very happy to see the plant up and running. The support from the local government agencies and the understanding of the local community has helped us to establish ourselves in the UK.”

The plant, built at a cost of Ј65m (E96m), will produce 15,000tpa of Soarnol, the Japanese company’s EVOH used as a gas and moisture barrier in multi-layered plastics packaging. The company will export 90% of output to continental Europe.

Nippon Gohsei’s plant is next door to BP’s 250,000tpa VAM plant, which provides one of the main feedstock for the EVOH production. Ethylene, another key feedstock, is pumped through a newly completed extension to the ethylene pipeline, which runs from Grangemouth in Scotland.

Completing the loop, methyl acetate by-product from the EVOH plant will be fed back to BP as a raw material in the production of acetic acid, from which VAM is derived. Nippon Gohsei will also be taking its electricity and steam supplies via BP.