BASF (Ludwigshafen / Germany; www.basf.com) is to invest EUR 1 bn in a new TDI plant at its headquarters in Ludwigshafen while simultaneously expanding the site’s precursor plants, the group announced on 17 January 2012. The German chemical giant said that once the single-train 300,000 t/y TDI line goes on stream – commissioning is planned for 2014 – it would close down its 80,000 t/y TDI facility in Schwarzheide / Germany.

As part of the investment, which BASF said would create an additional 200 jobs, the group plans to construct a new hydrogen chloride recycling plant and also expand its existing facilities for nitric acid, chlorine and synthetic gas. In addition, BASF said the investment would also cover an expansion of its aromatics complex in Ludwigshafen, which will then supply the necessary toluene.

Commenting on the investment, Wayne Smith, president of BASF’s Polyurethanes division, said, “This project will position us as the low-cost TDI producer in Europe due to economies of scale and the highly efficient integration into our Verbund.”

The smallest of its global TDI manufacturing sites, BASF said it would shut down the Schwarzheide facility once the new capacity comes on stream, choosing to focus instead on developing specialities at the site. Once the new 300,000 t/y line is commissioned in 2014, and Schwarzheide closed, the German group will have overall capacity to turn out 732,000 t/y of TDI worldwide, a look at Plasteurope.com’s Polyglobe (www.polyglobe.net) capacity database indicates.

The German group added that once the new line comes on stream, it will have two key polyurethane production sites in Europe: Ludwigshafen for TDI, as well as Antwerp / Belgium for MDI and propylene oxide (PO). At the latter site, the German group turns out 560,000 t/y of MDI as well as 300,00 t/y of PO which is produced in cooperation with Dow (see Plasteurope.com of 12.10.2011).