Sep 14 2004
Westlake Chemical Corporation announced today that it is planning for a phased start-up of its vinyl chloride monomer (VCM) and polyvinyl chloride (PVC) facilities in Geismar, Louisiana. Westlake acquired these facilities from Borden Chemical in December 2002 and has been operating the ethylene dichloride (EDC) portion of the plant since November 2003.
The VCM and PVC plants each have an estimated rated capacity of 600 million pounds per annum. The PVC plant is comprised of two trains. The first phase of the start-up will be on one of the trains with approximately 300 million pounds of PVC capacity per annum. This added capacity will be used in part to meet merchant PVC demand as well as internal demand for PVC resin as a result of the company's recent acquisition of three PVC pipe plants from Bristolpipe Corporation.
In addition to a graduated start up of the PVC operations, the company will also be investing in additional capacity in the EDC unit at Geismar. This capacity increase is expected to expand total EDC capacity by an estimated 25%.
It is currently estimated that the first phase start-up will commence in 2005. All future phases, if any, will be determined by market conditions at the time.
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