Sep 15 2005
Borealis today announced a total investment plan exceeding EUR 60 million to boost capacity and increase efficiency for its Phenol and Aromatics business located in Porvoo Finland.
Beyond the ongoing expansions to increase cumene and benzene capacity by 30% and investments to improve the safety and reliability of operations, an additional EUR 29 million will be invested to expand phenol capacity from 140,000 to 190,000 tonnes per year and acetone from 90,000 to 115,000 tonnes per year. Implementation of this capacity increase is expected during spring 2007.
“These investments are a logical step in our strategy to continuously develop and expand our phenol business which is based on local raw material integration and anticipated market growth,” says Maarit Aarni, Vice President Phenol & Aromatics Business Unit.
The European phenol market growth is largely driven by polycarbonate demand which is a key component in CD’s, DVD’s and various technical components for the automotive and electronics industries, like flat panel displays. Industries using phenolic resins, like the plywood industry in Finland, the Baltic and Russia, also show steady growth.
To improve the safety of our phenol plants, we are updating our locking system to ensure automatic shutdown and better safety in case of disturbances as well as installing new XCV valves and analysators.