MOSCOW (MRC) -- Zeon Chemicals Europe Ltd (ZCEL) has announced that it is postponing the planned closure of its site in Sully, Wales, to March 2016 from previously announced end of 2015, as per European-rubber-journal.
In April, Zeon announced the closure plans citing changing market conditions and uncertainty in the long-term availability and supply of primary raw materials to the UK site.
As MRC informed earlier, Zeon expected to end production in late December with the site closing at the end of March 2016. Capacity of the plant was not available. Zeon noted that it has already completed a consultation process with the site's approximate 100 employees.
As MRC wrote before, in 2013, Zeon started a new solution styrene butadiene rubber (SSBR) plant on Singapore's Jurong Island. The plant is expected to have an initial capacity of 35,000 mt/year. The company was tentatively planning to double capacity in 2015-2016 but will watch the market demand for SBR first before deciding on this. The SBR produced at the plant will be used for tires, with SBR's key feedstocks being butadiene (60%) and styrene monomer (35%).
Zeon has three synthetic rubber plants with a total production capacity of 270,000 mt/year, which can produce SBR, butadiene rubber, as well as isoprene rubber.