Sabic has announced it will build a new compounding plant in Genk, Belgium, that will have an initial production capacity of 110,000 tonnes of  Sabic PPcompound and 30,000 tonnes of Sabic’s Stamax long glass fibre PP.
The facility will come on-stream in the beginning of 2010.
“The new plant represents an important first step in growing Sabic’s worldwide PP compounding capability and will allow it to follow the growth of our large automotive customers in Western and Central Eastern Europe”, said Mark Neville, business unit director, Sabic PP Automotive. “This plant will be the biggest green field PP compounding plant ever built in Europe and has been designed with fully optimised production and logistics flows in mind. It will also be capable of housing an additional compounding line in the future taking its ultimate capacity in excess of 170,000 tonnes,” continued Mark.
“The plant in Genk will also be the home of Sabic’s Compounding Innovation Centre (CIC) with three pilot lines designed to speed the development cycle for new products and processes thus improving our responsiveness and flexibility,” said Kees Verbraak, manager Global Technical Marketing for Sabic PP Automotive. “As the business develops we plan to add CICs in other regions of the world,” he added.
“Sabic is committed to growing its position in the global automotive industry with its broad portfolio of Sabic PP, Sabic PPcompound and Sabic Stamax long glass fibre products,” said Abdulsalam Al-Mazro, vice president for polymers, Sabic.