Nippon Gohsei
金曜日, 28 11月 2008
Businesses are attracted to Yorkshire and Humber because they can benefit from being alongside complementary sectors. It offers the opportunity to tap into a wealth of specialist technical skills, as well as access to raw materials, and efficient connections to European markets.
This was the case with Japan-based Nippon Gohsei, which chose to open a UK plant to help meet growing demand in Europe for its product. The company is just one of two that produce Ethylene-Vinyl Alcohol Copolymer (EVOH), known as Soarnol, which is used primarily in food packaging.
Nippon Gohsei selected a site within the BP Chemicals complex at Saltend, next to BP’s new world-beating vinyl acetate monomer (VAM) plant, because of its excellent access to raw material supplies.
VAM, derived from acetic acid, is the main raw material feedstock for EVOH, and BP is one of the biggest producers of VAM in the world. The other main feedstock in the production of EVOH is ethylene and a newly completed extension to the UK’s ethylene pipeline now brings ethylene direct to the Saltend site.
One of the by-products from the manufacture of EVOH is methyl acetate and this is fed back to BP as a raw material for its production of acetic acid, from which VAM is derived. Nippon Gohsei also takes its electricity and steam supplies via BP. The £65m facility opened in September 2004 and is the biggest single-line plant in the world.
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