Current annual capacity of glass fibre is 60 000 tonnes. The investment will involve replacing both furnaces at the glass fibre plant. The glass fibre is used to reinforce plastics. “The high-tech plastics business is a major growth driver for LANXESS," says Werner Breuers, member of the Board of Management of speciality chemical company LANXESS AG. "There is attractive business potential in the global market arising from the increasing demand for modern mobility as well as from the electric and electronic markets. The global demand for high-tech plastics is expected to increase by roughly 7% per year through 2020." Just before summer a €35 million investment project to expand the production of the plastic intermediate caprolactam at the Antwerp site was finalised. The production capacity of 200 000 tonnes per year will be increased by another 10%.
More than half of the caprolactam and glass fibres the company produces are used internally.
The automotive industry is the largest customer for LANXESS' Semi-Crystalline Products (SCP) business unit, which produces Durethan polyamide (PA) 6 and 66 engineering thermoplastics and Pocan polybutylene terephthalate (PBT) engineering thermoplastics.
