DATE : 2015-11-10

 

Hungary's MOL officially launched its 130,000 tonne/year butadiene (BD) plant at its subsidiary TVK on Tuesday, the parent company said. At the inauguration, MOL CEO Zsolt Hernadi said company management expected the unit to add forint (Ft) 10bn (€31.86m) to group profits annually. The Ft 35bn installation, built at TVK's production complex in Tiszaujvaros, northeastern Hungary, would start full commercial operation before the end of this year, Hernadi added.

The unofficial startup of the unit took place at the end of September, with the first spot volumes leaving the plant on the 15 october, according to a source.

November will see MOL begin the construction of a synthetic rubber plant in Tiszaujvaros which is eventually expected to process output from the new BD plant, MOL said. The 60,000 tonne/year plant, set to cost Ft70bn, is to be built in partnership with Japan's JSR Corporation.

Central and eastern European BD production is currently hit by the ongoing extensive shutdowns that Unipetrol has implemented at its Litvinov site in the Czech Republic following an explosion and fire in its cracker unit. Polish rubber producer Synthos has suffered BD feedstock difficulties as a result of the Litvinov outage.

SOURCE Icis News