Operator Butachimie (Chalampé / France; www.butachimie.eu) has announced that the triennial maintenance of its adiponitrile (ADN) plant in Chalampé, running since the end of September 2019, has been completed (see Plasteurope.com of 29.07.2019). A joint venture of Invista (Wichita, Kansas / USA; www.invista.com) and Solvay (Brussels / Belgium; www.solvay.com – see Plasteurope.com of 02.12.2019), Butachimie restarted its facility, which also has additional capacity, at the beginning of 2020.

During the scheduled maintenance, the EUR 250m investment included installation of Invista’s advanced production technology. Butachimie said production will gradually ramp up after the controlled restart phase. The approximately 20% increase in capacity now gives Chalampé an ADN capacity of 620,000 t/y.

The upcoming completion of the polyamide transaction between Solvay and BASF (Ludwigshafen / Germany; www.basf.com) will include the German group owning a 50% stake in Butachimie.