BASF announces plans to build its largest Asian plastics plant

German chemicals giant BASF has begun constructing its largest Asian factory in Zhanjiang, in southern China’s Guangdong province.

Announced on May 21 at the Chinaplas 2019 trade show and reported by Chinese news agencies, BASF said the 60,000-metric-ton annual capacity engineering plastics compounding plant will meet rising demand for more sustainable automotive parts and lightweight materials for consumer products.

The plant could ultimately be BASF’s third-largest site worldwide; the company has two bigger factories in Germany and Belgium.

Due to come on-stream by 2022, the engineering plastics compounding plant will supply an additional capacity of 132 million pounds per year of BASF’s engineering plastics compounds, reports said.

BASF also used the occasion of Chinaplas to announce the launching of three “creation centres” in the Asia Pacific region: in Shanghai, China; Tokyo; and Mumbai, India. “We aim to help brands, companies and manufacturers discover new possibilities through hands-on exploration in an inspiring environment,” Andy Postlethwaite, BASF’s senior vice president, performance materials for Asia Pacific, said in a statement. “We will offer a wide range of resources in unique collaborative spaces, to empower designers, engineers and developers to create new products using BASF’s innovative material solutions, and support the emerging design requirements of the market.”

The creation centres will have workshop facilities and interactive material showcases, Postlethwaite said, and customers will be able to explore materials, use interactive digital tools, and participate in ideation and material consultancy workshops. “They will also have access to trend reports, material demonstrators and design events,” he said. “Together with BASF experts, they can seamlessly collaborate from design development to advanced simulations through computer-aided engineering through to advanced prototyping, all in one place.”