CHINA – South Korean chemical firm SK Geo Centric has signed an agreement with Zhejiang Satellite Petrochemical (STL) to build its second Ethylene Acrylic Acid (EAA) manufacturing plant in Lianyungang, Jiangsu, China.
EAA is a class of high-performance adhesive copolymer resin with bonding performance for dissimilar materials such as metals and plastics, or paper and plastics.
The construction of the plant is expected to begin in the second half of next year and commercial production in 2028.
SK Geo Centric said that the investment will help strengthen its foothold in Asia in the high-value-added EAA market.
The company’s fourth manufacturing plant aims to secure the only EAA production base in Asia. SK Geo Centric has three other plants in China, the US and Spain.
Upon completion, the EAA plant will have a targeted annual production capacity of 50,000 tonnes.
Additionally, it will increase the company’s global production capacity for EAA to 140,000 tonnes annually to easily capture the Asian market.
SK Geo Centric CEO Na Kyung-soo said: “We are expecting that this construction agreement for the new EAA plant will enable SKGC to preemptively respond to global demand.
“We will secure world-class competitiveness in producing high value-added chemical materials by enabling the early commercial production of the plant, and actively expand our product portfolio as well.”
In August last year, the chemical firm inked an establishment and investment agreement with STL to form a joint venture to build the global EAA Plant 3.
The third global plant is also situated in Lianyungang, Jiangsu, China with a production capacity of 40,000 tonnes. It is expected to be operational in the first half of 2025.
SK Geo Centric said that the third plant is currently in the engineering, procurement, and construction (EPC) phase.
The company acquired Dow Chemical Company’s EAA business in 2017 to operate manufacturing plants in Texas, US, and Tarragona, Spain.
SK Geo Centric is claimed to be the only company capable of commercial production of High Acid EAA with good adhesive performance.
Meanwhile, in January SK Geo Centric inked a deal with Plastic Energy to build a plastic waste recycling plant in Ulsan.
Under the deal inked at the CES tradeshow in Las Vegas, the factory will have an expected capacity of 66,000 metric tonnes of end-of-life plastic waste input.
The pyrolysis plant will be situated in the Ulsan plastic recycling complex, called the Ulsan Advanced Recycling Cluster. Construction of the plant will begin this year and is to be completed in 2025.
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