GUANGZHOU, CHINA — Specialty chemicals company Lanxess elaborated on its plans to build a red iron oxide pigment plant in Ningbo, at a news conference just before Chinaplas.
The company will invest 55 million euros (US$70.6 million) in the plant, which will have annual capacity of 25,000 metric tons. Construction will start in the second quarter, and production is scheduled to start in the first quarter of 2015. The plant will employ 150.
The new plant, in the Ningbo Economic and Petrochemical Development Area, will add to the company's current capacity of 40,000 metric tons of production in China at the company's Shanghai facilities, said Wolfgang Oehlert, vice president for the inorganic pigments business unit for Asia Pacific.
Chien Ming Cheng, CEO of Lanxess Greater China said: "We have a very positive take on the Chinese market and will take great strides in this direction while exploring new opportunities."
Products produced in Ningbo will be mostly for the China market.
"We see an increasing demand with the urbanization with the mobility with these mega trends for high quality products here in China and this is the market we want to serve in the future," Oehlert said.
The products Lanxess is showing this year at Chinaplas are an introduction to some of the products that the Ningbo plant will produce, including high-temperature-stable red, yellow and black pigments.
Oehlert said that the sustainability factor of the new facility is of utmost importance to the company, claiming that it will be an almost zero-emission factory. "We will be spending more than 30 percent of our investment on environmental production facilities, including waste water treatment, waste gas treatment, and solid waste recovery," he said.
He said the company hopes the factory can serve as a blueprint for future facilities around the world.