Chevron Chemical Co. is planning to use an expansion of polystyrene production at its Marietta, Ohio, facility to help it expand sales of 3-year-old, enhanced morphology polystyrene resins. As recently reported, Chevron intends to expand PS production by 250 million pounds at Marietta. Meanwhile, it is completing several other debottlenecking projects there that will increase its nameplate production capacity to 520 million pounds.
By April 1997, the expansions will give the plant the capacity to produce 770 million pounds of PS a year.
The 250 million-pound expansion will use Chevron's proprietary low-volatility, high-heat crystal technology, the company said.
George Avdey, business manager for Chevron's Styrenic Polymers Business unit, said in a telephone interview Aug. 30 that the expansions will help Chevron increase its production of high-heat crystal PS while it increases production of its Valtra high-gloss, high-impact PS products.
Chevron has targeted Valtra resins, introduced in 1992, at applications in consumer products, such as small appliances, portable telephones and vacuum cleaners, and has seen sales for those products grow significantly, Avdey said.
The growth has taxed Chevron's PS production lines, and the expansions are designed to ease the strain, according to Avdey.
While he said the expansions will let Chevron produce more of each type of resins - high-impact and crystal - Avdey declined to discuss specific production figures for those materials.
However, Advey said Chevron is targeting its Valtra prod-ucts to compete with ABS resins.
Valtra products, he said, are competing in a 300 million- to 400 million-pound-per-year segment of the 1.3 billion-pound market for ABS resins.
