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Mitsubishi Rayon Co., Ltd. (hereafter “MRC”) and Honam Petrochemical Corp. (hereafter “Honam Petrochemical”) have decided to expand methyl methacrylate (MMA) monomer and acrylic resin pellet manufacturing facilities at the plant of their joint venture Daesan MMA Corp.
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1. Expansion plan
· MMA monomer
New production capacity: 98,000 tons per year (188,000 tons combined with output of existing facilities)
Production to begin: January 2013 (scheduled)
Location: Honam Petrochemical Plant 3, Yeosu, Jeollanam-do, South Korea
Manufacturing method: C4 direct oxidization process for isobutylene *
* This MMA manufacturing method was developed by MRC, using isobutylene as raw material. The isobutylene is obtained from the C4 raffinate after separation of ethylene, propylene and butadiene through naphtha cracking.
· Acrylic resin pellets
Production capacity: 60,000 tons per year (110,000 tons per year combined with output of existing facilities)
Production to begin: November 2012 (scheduled)
Location: Honam Petrochemical Plant 3, Yeosu, Jeollanam-do, South Korea
Manufacturing method: Continuous bulk polymerization*
*Without use of water or solvents, the polymerization initiator is added only to the monomer, and continuous polymerization is carried out through heating. The method enables manufacture of pure polymer, as no supplementary materials are added.
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2. Background to the facility expansion
Following our integration with Lucite International Group of the United Kingdom in 2009, MRC aims to establish a resilient MMA supply chain using bases around the world, by leveraging our world-leading production capacity and competitiveness.
A particular focus is the rapidly emerging Asian countries, where demand is growing rapidly for light guide panels for LCD and LED televisions, on top of demand from the automotive and IT sectors. With MMA monomer and polymer likely to remain in tight supply for the foreseeable future, our basic strategy is to build out our production network in Asia and other fast-growing regions.
At Daesan MMA, the joint venture set up with our highly competitive partner Honam Petrochemical in the South Korean market, home to world-leading LCD panel companies, we will position ourselves to respond to strong demand through integrated production systems for monomer and polymer.
In particular, output of 60,000 tons of acrylic resin pellets per year is one of the world's highest levels for a single line. By introducing our proprietary continuous polymerization technologies, we will supply optimized, high-quality products for optical applications such as LCD and LED televisions.
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3. Outline of Daesan MMA Corp.
Name: Daesan MMA Corp.
Head office: Daesan-eup,Seosan,Chungcheongnam-Do, South Korea
Office: Seoul, South Korea
Established: August 2006
Capital: 120 billion won
Equity ownership: Honam Petrochemical Corporation (50%), Mitsubishi Rayon Co., Ltd. (50%)
Co-representative and President: Ahn Ki Lee
Co-representative and Deputy President: Hiroshi Miki
Nature of business:
(1) Manufacture and marketing of MMA and methacrylic acid (MAA) monomer (current production capacity: MMA 90,000 tons, MAA 8,000 tons)
(2) Manufacture and marketing of acrylic resin pellets (current production capacity: 50,000 tons*)
* In January 2011, we raised capacity from 40,000 tons to 50,000 tons by removing bottlenecks in production.
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