Swiss chemical company Ineos is planning to build a 300,000 metric ton per year vinyl acetate monomer (VAM) plant at one of its European sites to support its position as a supplier to markets such as the coatings, films and adhesives industries.
In a Sept. 5 announcement, Ineos said that it was completing an engineering study into the construction of the plant which will most likely be built at one of its oxide business' integrated sites at Saltend, United Kingdom; Dormagen, Germany; or Zwijndrecht, Belgium.
Each of the locations benefits from pipeline or terminal supply of feedstock ethylene, and low-cost logistics for the other key raw material, acetic acid.
In addition, noted Ineos, the locations are also well positioned to supply the VAM market efficiently.
"Our VAM project represents a further major investment for Ineos and will commit the business to a spend in the hundreds of millions of euros, whether it is a new build, or a revamp of the former VAM production facility in Saltend," said Graham Beesley, CEO of Ineos Oxide.
The project, for which Ineos has earmarked “hundreds of thousands of euros” chimes in with a recent announcement by Ineos of major ethylene debottlenecks at Grangemouth in the U.K., and Rafnes, Norway.
"We are pleased to be re-entering the European VAM market where our upstream strength in ethylene … will give us a competitive advantage. The market is at present heavily reliant on imports from deep sea locations, and our new capacity is designed to plug the gap and improve supply dependability to our customer base," Beesley added.
VAM is an essential building block in the production of many products including paints, windshields, high performance films, car fuel tanks, PVC and adhesives.