Huntsman to Proceed With Construction of World's Largest Polyethylene Plant
The 400,000 tonnes per year plant, Huntsman's first venture into the growing European polyethylene market, will be built at the Wilton International site at a cost of around £200 million. The company anticipates the main plant will cost approximately £180 million with a further £20 million covering logistics and infrastructure.
It will create 117 permanent jobs and help underpin the future of the Huntsman Cracker facility at Wilton and will also help to sustain a further 747 Huntsman and contractor jobs at the company's Aromatics business at North Tees and Wilton.
Subject to the signing of a technology license agreement, the company expects to begin construction in 2005, with the plant being operational in the third quarter of 2007.
Huntsman's decision to move ahead with the new facility is due in large part to a grant of £16.5 million ($30 million) under the Regional Selective Assistance (RSA) scheme from the UK Government, via the Department of Trade and Industry.
The total UK market demand for LDPE is currently around 500,000 tonnes per year, with approximately another five million tonnes used annually in Europe. The new Huntsman facility will significantly reduce the UK's need to import material to meet its low-density requirements, and will help turn the country into a net exporter of the product. It is anticipated that product from the new plant will be used primarily in packaging applications.
The new plant also will be an important consumer of the ethylene made at Huntsman's Cracker manufacturing facility at Wilton, thereby underpinning the future of this key plant for the foreseeable future.
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