MOSCOW (MRC) -- Asahi Kasei is likely to shut a naphtha cracker permanently, according to Apic-online.
A Polymerupdate source in Japan informed that the cracker is likely to be mothballed by February 2016. The permanent shutdown has been attributed to sluggish demand in the domestic markets.
Located in Mizushima, Japan, the cracker has a capacity of 500,000 mt/year.
As MRC wrote previously, Asahi Kasei’s (Tokyo, Japan) Fibers division will expand production capacity for polypropylene spunbond nonwovens in Thailand at its subsidiary Asahi Kasei Spunbond (Thailand) Co. AKST will add a new production line of 20,000 metric tons per year capacity which, combined with its existing production line, will double its capacity for spunbond nonwovens to 40,000 m.t/yr. The investment for the capacity expansion is approximately USD5 billion, with a scheduled startup of November 2015.
Asahi Kasei Corporation is a global Japanese chemical company. Its main products are chemicals and materials science.
MRC