Lanxess still expanding butyl rubber capacity

Leverkusen, Germany - Ron Commander, head of Lanxess' butyl rubber business unit said the company is continuing to expand capacity for the material. He said a 10 percent capacity increase at the company's Antwerp plant was fully completed earlier this year, while a 42 percent increase at the company's Sarnia (Canada) facility is due on stream in 2007. Commander said once the Sarnia expansion is on stream, Lanxess will have capacity for 265 000 tonnes per year of butyl and halo-butyl rubber, 25 percent more than before the expansions.

Commander declined to reveal the individual plant capacities, but using Lanxess data, ERJ estimates that after the expansions, Sarnia will have capacity for 138 kt/year while Antwerp will be 127 kt/year. When these figures were put to Commander he said they were not correct.

Commander said Lanxess' output is split 85:15 between halobutyl and ordinary butyl materials, compared with a global demand split of 2:1. He added that the vast majority of all butyl sales go into inner tubes used in tyres, and as Asia and India move away from tubed tyres to tubeless, demand for butyl is likely to fall while demand for halobutyl will increase.