Zeon will not close NBR plants in US - clarification

Further to press reports over a reduction in capacity for NBR in North America, Zeon has issued the following statement

• Zeon Chemicals L.P. operates 3 plants in North America, in Louisville, KY; Hattiesburg, MS and Houston, TX. All plants will be operating as normal.
• The only plant out of these three that makes acrylonitrile butadiene rubber (NBR) is in Louisville, which is a multi-purpose facility that produces both NBR and HyTemp polyacrylate rubber. The NBR produced at this location is very specialized and there are no plans to relocate NBR to Japan from here or to reduce capacity.
• Zeon did have an arrangement with a toll manufacturer in the United States that expired earlier this year. This was announced to our customers in March 2009.
• It is this volume that is being relocated to Japan at Zeon's Tokuyama Plant. To facilitate this Zeon has increased its capacity by 10,000 MT and invested a considerable amount of capital to improve the production procedures.
• There is no NBR produced in Mississippi or Texas. Zeon's Mississippi plant produces Epichlorohydrin polymers under the Hydrin tradename and Hydrogenated Nitrile polymers under the Zetpol tradename are produced at their facility in Texas. Zeon began production in the US after purchasing the NBR business of BF Goodrich in 1989

ERJ is happy to clarify the situation.