BASF Chooses Michigan for Expansion of Recently Acquired Emulsion and Resin Business

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Researched by Industrial Info Resources (Sugar Land, Texas). In July of this year, BASF Corporation (NYSE:BF) (Florham Park, New Jersey) acquired the emulsion and resin business of Johnson Polymer (Sturtevant, Wisconsin). Johnson Polymer agreed to continue producing product for the business unit under a toll production agreement from the existing Sturtevant plant site until BASF can construct production facilities of its own. BASF had been evaluating multiple locations including Wyandotte, Michigan and Chattanooga, Tennessee, before selecting to approach its board of directors for approval to locate the new $140 million expansion at the Wyandotte site.

Board approval of the selected site is expected in the near future and design engineering is already in the early phases. Civil site construction for the expansion of BASF’s existing Wyandotte plant is currently planned to begin early next summer with production beginning in the first or second quarter of 2009. Once complete, this expansion project will represent a significant boost in the plant’s annual capital and maintenance spending that has historically totaled nearly $15 million per year and increase local employment by nearly 175 jobs through relocations and new hires.

Industrial Info is currently tracking sixteen individual capital and maintenance projects planned by BASF in the United States and Canada. These projects, including the expansion of Wyandotte, represent a total investment value (TIV) of over $284 million scheduled to begin construction during 2007. A great deal of that spending is related to the addition of a ninth ethylene cracking furnace at its Port Arthur, Texas plant. Industrial Info has identified one major project originally planned to kick off in 2007 by BASF that will be post-poned until 2008, greatly reducing the total dollars to be invested next year. This project was for the construction of a hydrogen peroxide to propylene oxide (HPPO) unit addition at a Louisiana site. Construction for this estimated $100 million project was originally planned to begin in the fourth quarter of 2007 and has been delayed until the early summer of 2008.

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