With Asia accounting for 20% of its business, German engineering plastics maker Domo Chemicals has gone East with its latest manufacturing plant. It has invested in a nylon compounding plant with a capacity of 10,000 tonnes to start with, as part of its global expansion of its engineering plastics unit, said Ludovic Tonnerre, Managing Director, speaking at the Media Day organised by Adsale in conjunction with Chinaplas 2015. The new plant will be located at the company’s Jiaxing facility in Zhejiang province.
As part of the total investment, Domo will have a step-by-step expansion at the plant starting up with 10,000 tonnes in 2015; 15,000 tonnes in 2016 and a total capacity of 20,000 tonnes by 2020, said Tonnerre.
Also with pressure from the Chinese government for companies to get environment friendly, Domo is setting up its plant with a water treatment unit that will save 5 tonnes of COD and 55 cu km of industrial water; a roof covered by solar panels and an air treatment system to reduce 240 tonnes/year of VOCs with a performance rate of 99.9%, said Tonnerre.
Domo will also relocate to the new CECEP industrial park at Jiaxing. “The plant is now being built with four extrusion lines and will be up and running by the end of the year,” said Tonnerre.
The new plant will serve Asian customers with Domo’s variety of products including Domamid nylon 6 and 6.6 as well as high temperature nylon compounds and Econamid and Econamid Oro engineering polymers based on post industrial recycled (PIR) waste feedstock.
Econamid solutions are based on PIR yarns, textiles, fish nets and films that are pretreated and extruded.
It is also expanding its current laboratory to become bigger with formulation, analysis equipment as well as test/control and sample and ageing equipment, said Tonnerre.
In China, the company is focusing on the automotive industry since China has become the largest vehicle maker. Meanwhile, the sector is under pressure to lower raw material prices, reduce costs and carbon emissions.
“Econamid is our fastest product line in terms of sales since the automotive sector is pushing a lot to introduce PIR in their parts. In China, we have a nice cooperation with Ford and BMW.”
When asked about the Southeast Asian market, Tonnerre said that Domo would focus on China first “as the company is very busy and has lots to do”. But he did not rule out expansion in India, though not in the near future.
Privately owned Domo, which was previously in the construction business, started in the chemical business in 1994 with the acquisition of the Leuna caprolactam site in Germany.
The acquisition of Aquafil Engineering Plastics business (Italy/US/China) in 2013 marked the global expansion of Domo’s Engineering Plastics business. With the acquisition of CFP Flexible Packaging SpA (Italy), a leading European producer of nylon 6 speciality films for the flexible packaging industry, mid 2014, it further strengthened its nylon 6 value chain.
The company also has a business relationship with Middle East-based Advanced Petrochemical Company (Al Jubail), for a global trading platform for polypropylene and other commodity plastics and chemicals.
Today, Domo has sales of US$1 billion and 850 employees, with facilities in Germany, Italy, China and the US. Domo is a fully integrated caprolactam and nylon 6 specialist active in the field of nylon 6 intermediates.
(PRA)
