SUMMIT, N.J. - Engineering resins maker Ticona has launched construction of a 66 million-pound-capacity, ultrahigh-molecular-weight polyethylene plant in Bishop, Texas.
The $50 million plant, set to open in the second half of 2003, will produce Ticona's GUR-brand UHMW PE and will replace a smaller plant in Bayport, Texas. The Bayport site already produces Summit-based Ticona's nylon 6/6 resins as well as acetate products for Ticona's parent, Celanese AG of Frankfurt, Germany.
Typical GUR applications include bulk containers, truck linings, pump housings and ski and snowboard bottoms. Ticona, which also operates a UHMW PE manufacturing plant in Oberhausen, Germany, ranks as the world's largest maker of that material.
The firm posted total sales of about $805 million in 2000.