Delamine to Expand Netherlands Ethylene Amines Plant to 55,000 Tons per Year

---

Researched by Industrial Info Resources (Sugar Land, Texas)--Delamine BV (Amersfoort, Netherlands), a 50:50 joint venture of Akzo Nobel N.V. (OTC:AKZOY) (Arnhem, Netherlands) and Tosoh Corporation (TYO:4042) (Tokyo, Japan), is well on its way to creating the world's largest single ethylene amines production plant based on ethylene dichlorides. A debottlenecking program launched by the firm two years ago and slated for completion by 2010 will boost the production capacity of its plant in Delfzijl, Netherlands, by 35% to 55,000 tons per year.

Demand for ethylene amines is estimated to grow at an annual rate of 2% to 3% worldwide and more than 5% in Asia. Delamine plans to focus on the production of higher amines and is also looking to increase flexibility in the production process in order to expand its product portfolio.

In March this year, Tosoh Corporation, Asia's sole manufacturer of ethylene amines, announced plans to invest $215 million toward capacity expansion of its plant in Shunan in southwest Japan to 26,000 tons per year by March 2010 and to 36,000 tons per year by March 2012. This expansion initiative will raise the firm's total production capacity of ethylene amines to 89,000 tons per year, making it the third largest producer in the world after Dow Chemical Company (NYSE:DOW) (Midland, Michigan) and Akzo Nobel NV.

Ethylene amines are value-added chemicals that are manufactured in a continuous high-pressure reaction of ethylene dichloride with an excess of ammonia. At the end of the continuous process when the pressure in the reactor is reduced, caustic soda is added to the reactants and the resulting salt is extracted through crystallization. A subsequent process of distillation is used to separate the end products.

Delamine manufactures both lower and higher homologues of ethylene amines including diethylenetriamine, ethylenediamine, higher ethylenepolyamines, pentaethylenehexamine, piperazine anhydrous, N-aminoethylpiperazine, tetraethylenepentamine and triethylenetetramine. These substances are used in the manufacture of several products including additives for lube oil and fuel, bitumen additives, chelating agents, corrosion inhibitors, epoxy curing agents, fabric softeners and paper chemicals.

Industrial Info Resources (IIR) is a marketing information service specializing in industrial process, energy and financial related markets with products and services ranging from industry news, analytics, forecasting, plant and project databases, as well as multimedia services.