INEOS Polyolefins announce EUR150 million investment in European assets.
INEOS polyolefins announced its intention to invest in excess of EUR150 million in its European assets over the next three years, focussed on growing and upgrading its polyolefins capacities. "In making these investments, we greatly strengthen our market positions in products where we have a long term competitive advantage and clearly demonstrate INEOS' determination to build a very robust business around the high quality people and assets acquired as part of the Innovene acquisition of late 2005" says Bill Reid, CEO of INEOS Polyolefins
Polypropylene capacity expansions will take place at its facilities in Geel, Belgium and Grangemouth, Scotland. At Geel a 220 ktpa expansion of the Innovene P gas phase polypropylene unit will increase this unit's capacity to 500ktpa, transforming it into one of the largest units in the world. The smaller slurry/dry flash polypropylene asset at Geel will close later this year. At Grangemouth the 220ktpa liquid pool polypropylene unit will undergo a 30ktpa debottleneck raising its capacitiy to 280ktpa, with a further 30ktpa debottleneck to be implemented when market demand permits.
High density polyethylene capacity expansions will take place at INEOS Polyolefins' Lillo manufacturing site, whereby the capacity of its proprietary bi-modal slurry phase unit will be increased by 200ktpa to 630ktpa. The new capacity shall be in place by 2009. At Grangemouth, given the current situation in plant economics, and provided there are no significant changes in market conditions, the smaller and older of its two gas phase polyethylene units, a HDPE unit, located at this site will close at the end of 2007.
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