Europe's EVOH Resins Capacity Expands, with U.S. Capacity Set to Double in 2006

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Researched by Industrialinfo.com (Industrial Information Resources Incorporated; Houston, Texas). Packaging for ketchup, soup, oil, juice, pharmaceuticals, and other consumables is driving the growth in manufacturing capacity of ethylene vinyl-alcohol (EVOH) copolymer resins. Traditionally, growth in that product has centered on the consumer economies of Europe, North America, and Japan, but new demand is expected from Eastern Europe, the Middle East, South Africa, and Latin America, where standards of living and lifestyles are moving up the economic scale. Growth in the product sector is expected to run at 10% per annum over the next decade.

In Antwerp, Belgium, EVAL Europe, a subsidiary of Kuraray Company Limited (Osaka, Japan) has completed a $100 million expansion in the production capacity of its EVOH product, EVAL, to 24,000 tons per annum, making it the largest single production site for the product in the world, overtaking parent company Kuraray's U.S. EVAL site at Pasadena, Texas, which produces 23,000 tons a year. The Antwerp plant was established in 1997 and upped its original 10,000-ton output to 12,000 tons in 2001.

EVAL Europe, in parallel with the output expansion, has constructed a new processing and development hall for its European EVAL Technical Center to serve clients in Europe, Africa, and the Middle East. This will accelerate and increase research and product development.

In August, the U.S. plant operated by EVAL Company of America announced plans to expand its manufacturing capacity by 24,000 tons a year, with construction to be completed in March 2006. This addition will bring Kuraray's global EVAL production capacity to 81,000 tons a year. Currently, it is 57,000 tons a year, with the plant at Okayama, Japan producing 10,000 tons. See related July 15, 2004 news article - Texas Chemical Producer Select Contractor for Major Expansion.

An additional 15,000 tons of EVOH production was added to the global total when the Nippon Gohsei (NG) plant was opened in September at Saltend, Yorkshire, U.K. The branded Soarnol product will see 90% of production exported to Europe. The plant is on a site inside the BP Chemicals (London, U.K.) complex at Saltend, adjacent to BP's new world-scale, 250,000 ton-a-year vinyl acetate monomer (VAM) plant, giving NG direct pipeline access to raw material supplies. Derived from acetic acid, VAM is the main feedstock for EVOH. Ethylene, the other main feedstock in EVOH production, will be piped to the Saltend site through a new extension to the U.K.'s ethylene pipeline from Grangemouth, Scotland. NG will also be supplied with electricity and steam through BP.

Methyl acetate, a by-product from EVOH manufacture, will be fed back to BP as a feedstock in the production of acetic acid, from which VAM is derived.

The property, which focuses EVOH's marketability, is that it has the highest gas impermeability rate of any plastic - approximately 10,000 times that of ordinary polyethylene. Its use as a gas and moisture barrier provides resistance to odor and flavor permeation in packaged foodstuffs. It is also experiencing high growth as a barrier layer in automotive fuel systems and in floor heating systems and appliances.

Kuraray Company was established in Kurashi City, Japan, in 1926 to produce viscose rayon. Nippon Gohsei (Osaka) was formed in 1927, when four Japanese vinegar producers merged to produce acetic acid on an industrial scale.

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