Bayer Closes 50-Year-Old TDI Unit in West Virginia and Moves Forward with Plans to Bring New Capacity Online

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Researched by Industrialinfo.com (Industrial Information Resources, Incorporated; Houston, Texas). Bayer Material Science LLC, a division of Bayer AG (Leverkusen, Germany), shut down its toluene diisocyanate (TDI) production unit located in New Martinsville, West Virginia earlier this year. The unit had been in production since the mid 1950’s and had an annual production capacity of 110 million pounds.

The West Virginia plant will incur an overall company cost of $29 million with an estimated $5 million expense going toward the actual unit closure and demolition. Bids for decontaminating and dismantling the unit will continue to be released through the end of this year and actual demolition construction will begin early in 2006. Bayer anticipates having the unit dismantlement complete by early third quarter 2006. Bayer will continue to produce other isocyanates and polyols at West Virginia plant.

Bayer is planning to add additional TDI capacity internationally with a new 160,000 metric tons a year unit to be constructed in Shanghai, China. Industrialinfo.com has been tracking the movement of this project since April 2000 as part of its International Industrial Database. This project has faced some delays over the years as market conditions swayed in response to new capacity proposed by other producers surfaced. With approvals in hand, the unit will cost an estimated $100 million to construct with the anticipation of breaking ground in mid 2006 and a completion date set for the summer of 2008.

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