Arlanxeo still doing house K-eeping

Duesseldorf, Germany - Arlanxeo officials set a fairly conservative tone when describing developments since the launch of the joint venture between Lanxess and Saudi Aramco on 1 April.

At a K2016 preview event*, CEO Jan Paul de Vries set out the JV's progress to date, saying that its first priority was to ensure that customers were not impacted by the business changes, and that there were no interruptions to supply.

"We want to make sure that our customers have no negative effects from the joint venture but, on the contrary, that they have only benefits," de Vries stated at the 28 June press event.

The CEO went on to point to the establishment of an executive committee and a shareholders committee of the JV. Arlanxeo, he added, now has offices with MDs and CFOs in every major country reporting to a new global HQ in, Masstricht, The Netherlands.

More interesting, perhaps, was de Vries' comment that the joint venture was "step-by-step becoming backward integrated" – though he did not elaborate further on this point.

The ability to source hydrocarbon feedstock, mainly C2-C4 olefins, from Aramco was central to the business rationale for the creation of the synthetic rubber JV.

Lanxess' management has previously said that full integration would take years to complete due to contracts with existing feedstock suppliers – the German group has been the world’s largest user some monomers, such as butadiene.

Global network

With annual sales of around €2.8 billion in 2015, Arlanxeo operates 20 plants and employs 3,800 people worldwide. It has two business units; Tire & Specialty Rubbers (TSR) and High Performance Elastomers (HPE).

The TSR unit has capacities of around 400 kilotonnes per annum (ktpa) for butyl rubbers and over 1,000ktpa for polybutadiene and styrene-butadiene rubbers. HPE’s output capacity includes: EPDM, 450ktpa; (H)NBR (nitrile rubbers), over 130ktpa; chloroprene rubber (CR), over 60ktpa; and EVM (ethylene vinyl acetate) rubber, around 15ktpa.

Arlanxeo says its global production-set-up includes: the world’s largest EPDM plants in Geleen, The Netherlands and Changzhou, China; a world-scale CR plant in Dormagen, Germany; and the world’s largest NBR plant in La Wantzenau, France.

*At K2016, Arlanxeo’s presentations will include: A new generation of HNBR elastomers; new HNBR elastomers for low temperature applications, including automotive and oil exploration; new powdered NBR products; EVM elastomers for alternative-energy cable applications; and new developments in functionalised solution rubbers for tire applications.