Evonik purchases hydrogen peroxide business in Canada
Increase in hydrogen peroxide production by 44,000 metric tons per year
Evonik Industries purchased the hydrogen peroxide business of Kemira Chemicals Canada Inc. The transaction includes the production plant in Maitland (Ontario, Canada) and the customer portfolio. It also covers the employees at the site.
This makes Evonik one of the market leaders for hydrogen peroxide in North America (Canada and USA). With the takeover of the business, the company will increase its H2O2 capacity in North America by 44,000 metric tons to more than 200,000 metric tons per year. Evonik is already producing H2O2 there at the Gibbons (Alberta, Canada) and Mobile (Alabama, USA) sites.
"In taking over the Maitland production business, we're moving a step forward in our global growth strategy for hydrogen peroxide," said Dr. Dahai Yu, a member of Evonik's Executive Board. Only recently, Evonik decided to construct a new H2O2 plant in Jilin, China, which is expected to come on stream at the end of 2013 with an annual capacity of 230,000 metric tons. With its current total capacity of more than 600,000 metric tons per year, Evonik is already a leading global supplier of hydrogen peroxide.
The output from Maitland will supply mainly the North American pulp and paper industry with H2O2 as an eco-friendly oxidant.
"In our growth strategy, we give great importance to new technologies, as in Jilin, where we will supply H2O2 to a plant producing propylene oxide by direct chemical synthesis, and to selective acquisitions, as now in Maitland," said Jan Van den Bergh, head of Evonik's Advanced Intermediates Business Unit. "With our new site, we are now geographically very well positioned also in North America, and can achieve even better proximity to our customers."
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