German speciality chemicals producer Lanxess (Leverkusen; www.lanxess.com) has started operations at its new base PA 6 polymer plant in Antwerp / Belgium. The EUR 75m plant started up as planned (for earlier coverage, see Plasteurope.com of 01.06.2012), and will gradually be ramped up until reaching full capacity in the coming months. Output is mostly earmarked for the automotive industry. Lanxess said that all plastics manufactured at the site will be processed into “Durethan” reinforced and unreinforced compounds at its German plants in Krefeld/Uerdingen and Dormagen.

Thanks to its location near the group’s existing caprolactam plant, Lanxess will be able to raise its captive use of the plastics intermediate, the company said. It added that the facility also is located in the vicinity of its glass fibre manufacturing plant in Antwerp. The company recently completed an expansion of the latter plant’s capacity, lifting output by 10% to 66,000 t/y – see Plasteurope.com of 07.09.2011.

“Durethan” PA 6 and PA 6.6 compounds are part of Lanxess’ High Performance Materials (HPM) business unit, which in turn operates under the umbrella of the Performance Polymers Segment. The latter posted revenues of EUR 4.5 bn in 2013. In Q1 this year, however, revenues fell by 6.3% to EUR 1.1 bn amid lower sales prices – for details, see Plasteurope.com of 09.05.2014. The German speciality chemicals group most recently issued a call for higher PA 6 prices in EMEA – see Plasteurope.com of 30.06.2014.