KAO Specialties Begins Construction for New Polyester Resin Unit Addition

---

Researched by Industrialinfo.com (Industrial Information Resources, Incorporated; Houston, Texas). KAO Specialties Americas LLC (High Point, North Carolina) a subsidiary of KAO Corporation (Tokyo, Japan) has begun construction of a new production unit that is basically a duplicate of an existing polyester resin unit already in production at their plant site in High Point (Plant 1011709). This new unit will expand KAO's production of polyester toner resin binders, a product used in ink toner cartridges to support the bonding of ink with printing paper.

Shimizu America Corporation (Atlanta, Georgia) has been selected as the E+P+C/M for this estimated $14 million project. Steel erection began two weeks ago and is now nearly 40% complete. Construction is planned to be complete in November and production starting in December of this year occupying approximately 18,000 square feet of new building space.

The use of polyester resins in color toners has increased significantly in recent years due to its superior dispersion qualities and lower temperature fusing. KAO produces a variety of specialty chemicals in High Point serving the textile, pulp & paper, and plastics industries and has expanded their production of dry toner and chemicals at this site on several occasions in the past years.