Released on 26/12/12
Mitsubishi Chemical Holdings and its Mitsubishi Rayon subsidiary said on Sunday that no decision has been made regarding the construction of a methyl methacrylate (MMA) plant in the United States. The announcement was in response to a Sunday article in Nikkei business, which said that Mitsubishi Chemical Holdings plans to invest ¥50 billion to ¥60 billion yen ($590 million to $710 million) in a plant that will use low-cost materials from Dow Chemical and take advantage of cheap North American shale gas. Mitsubishi Chemical plans to build an acrylic resin-processing plant next door to a planned Dow ethylene plant at Freeport, TX, as estimates put the cost savings of making chemicals there at about 95% of making them in Japan, the paper said. Mitsubishi Chemical had been considering methyl methacrylate monomer production in the U.S., but nothing concrete has been decided, the company said.
The plant would have capacity of about 250,000 m.t./year of MMA, making it one of the largest such units in the world. “On December 23, 2012, certain Japanese media carried reports about the construction of [an] MMA plant in the United States. However, Mitsubishi Chemical Holdings has issued no announcement to that effect, nor has the company’s board of directors made any resolution to that effect,” Mitsubishi Chemical Holding said in a statement. Mitsubishi Chemical Holdings earlier this year announced plans to boost MMA capacity at its Beaumont, TX complex.
Source Chemweek
Mitsubishi Chemical Holdings and its Mitsubishi Rayon subsidiary said on Sunday that no decision has been made regarding the construction of a methyl methacrylate (MMA) plant in the United States. The announcement was in response to a Sunday article in Nikkei business, which said that Mitsubishi Chemical Holdings plans to invest ¥50 billion to ¥60 billion yen ($590 million to $710 million) in a plant that will use low-cost materials from Dow Chemical and take advantage of cheap North American shale gas. Mitsubishi Chemical plans to build an acrylic resin-processing plant next door to a planned Dow ethylene plant at Freeport, TX, as estimates put the cost savings of making chemicals there at about 95% of making them in Japan, the paper said. Mitsubishi Chemical had been considering methyl methacrylate monomer production in the U.S., but nothing concrete has been decided, the company said.
The plant would have capacity of about 250,000 m.t./year of MMA, making it one of the largest such units in the world. “On December 23, 2012, certain Japanese media carried reports about the construction of [an] MMA plant in the United States. However, Mitsubishi Chemical Holdings has issued no announcement to that effect, nor has the company’s board of directors made any resolution to that effect,” Mitsubishi Chemical Holding said in a statement. Mitsubishi Chemical Holdings earlier this year announced plans to boost MMA capacity at its Beaumont, TX complex.
Source Chemweek