Kemira has signed an agreement to establish a joint venture – Kemira Yongsan Chemicals Co. Ltd (“NewCo”) in Ulsan, Republic of Korea, with Yongsan Chemicals, a privately-owned chemicals company in South Korea.
Forming a joint venture in South Korea is an important step in expanding Kemira’s presence in Asia Pacific and driving profitable growth in the region. NewCo will produce dry polyacrylamide (“DPAM”), cationic monomer Q9 (“AMD”) and other chemicals, which are used for retention and drainage in packaging and paper production, as well as in wastewater treatment and in sludge dewatering.
With the NewCo’s production site, Kemira will provide customers premium quality DPAMs supported by backward integrated high-quality AMDs. This ensures a sustainable and cost-effective manufacturing capability, effectively fulfilling customer needs and requirements. It is also an important addition to balance the increasing demand for Kemira’s dry polymers globally.
“The joint venture accelerates our strategy and strengthens our position as a leading global polymer producer. It supports Kemira’s future growth, especially in Asia pacific region by providing additional polymer capacity, securing our capacity utilization and supporting our customers better with our global delivery capability”, says Nichlas Kavander, SVP, Pulp & Paper, APAC.
Kemira’s will make a multi-million investment in the joint venture and will have 35% minority share of the established company.
Source: Kemira
The future CEO of thyssenkrupp Uhde, Nadja Håkansson, has held various management positions at Siemens and Siemens Energy and looks back on over 18 years of national and international experience in the areas of supply chain management, operations, sales and corporate management.
Neste and South Korean company Lotte Chemical have partnered on a project to elevate the sustainability profile of chemicals and plastics. The partnership’s ambition is to replace fossil resources with renewable raw materials that offer a lower carbon footprint.
At least the confidence in the chemical sector has been seeing an upward trend and the trade balance is recovering as destocking seems to be coming to an end. Citing projections from the European Central Bank, CEFIC states that the level of inflation is expected to fall from 5.4% in 2023 to 2.3% in 2024.
