INVISTA plans to add 40,000 tonne of nylon 6,6 polymer capacity at its current 150,000-tonne polymer plant at the Shanghai Chemical Industry Park (SCIP). Construction is targeted for mid-2019 and production would begin in 2020. “We are continuing to make strategic investments to best meet our customers’ needs,” said Pete Brown, INVISTA vice president of nylon polymer. “In looking at our forecast for the future growth of the nylon 6,6 polymer market, we see increased demand in Asia and are expanding our capacity to meet that demand.”
This project aligns with INVISTA’s other recent announcements regarding additional capacity in the nylon 6,6 value chain, including the new adiponitrile (ADN) plant announced for China by 2023, and additional ADN capacity resulting from retrofits of INVISTA’s latest ADN technology at Butachimie, INVISTA’s joint venture with Solvay in France in 2019; and at Invista’s Victoria, TX, site, targeted for 2020. “We’ve invested more than $1 bn in the nylon 6,6 value chain in the past five years, have recently committed to investing $1 bn more and are continuing to evaluate the market for additional opportunities in the future,” added Brown.
Over the past five years, INVISTA has invested more than $600 mn in China to support the nylon market, including a 215,000-ton hexamethylenediamine (HMD) plant and the plant at the Shanghai Chemical Industry Park (SCIP). The company has also created multiple-generation improvements to the technology over the decades, recently setting production records with the deployment of its latest technology in the US.
