Issue 21/2017 - Celanese capacity expansion supports engineering materials business growth

Celanese expands capacity to support growth in engineered materials On October 23, specialty materials company Celanese announced plans to expand capacity at its global compounding assets and select product-specific manufacturing sites to support significant growth

in its engineered materials business.

In terms of compounding capacity expansion, in Asia, Celanese will add two production lines at its Nanjing plant in China and one at its recently acquired Suzhou plant in China; In the Americas, Celanese will add two production lines at its Florence, Kentucky facility and expand compounding capacity at its Bishop facility, Texas; In Europe, Celanese will add a new production line
at its recently acquired Forli plant in Italy.
Celanese hopes that these new production lines and expansions will increase its compounding capacity by about 50,000~60,000 tons
per year.
The company also expects that by eliminating the bottleneck of the existing global production line, its compound material production capacity is expected to increase by 10,000~15,000 tons
per year.

In the Americas, Celanese is adding a new Celstran fiber thermoplastic (LFT) line at its Winona, Minnesota facility, while improving
existing line bottlenecks.
The company expects to increase capacity
by 9,000 tons per year through such expansion and the removal of bottlenecks in existing global LFT lines.
In Asia, Celanese is currently planning a new GUR?Hexane ultra-high molecular weight polyethylene (UHMW-PE) production line
at its Nanjing plant in China.
The company expects the new line to add approximately 15,000 tons of new GUR UHMW-PE capacity
per year.
The above announced projects are expected to be completed during 2018~2019; Financial details are not disclosed
at this time.