MATERIALS | TITANIUM DIOXIDE


Above: The Lomon Billions Technology Centre at Jiaozuo in China. The company says it has “vigourous development plans”


Vergnano said the company is extending the timeline for planned capacity expansions into 2021 and 2022, as it cuts capital spending on growth projects this year due to slowing consumer demand. Its long term aim is to add more than 200,000 tonnes of annual capacity across various plants. Before the coronavirus pandemic emerged, the


TiO2


sector had largely de-stocked through 2019 and was just beginning to turn up, Vergnano says. He says the company’s Chemours’ Ti-Pure Flex online portal has helped it increase its market share over the last 12 months. That was introduced to allow qualified customers to lock-in prices through a “buy-as-you-need” approach (it was covered in Compounding World August 2019, page 42).


Tracking capacity Lomon Billions, which operates five TiO2


Above: Julie Reid, Lomon Billions marketing director, says company has opened more European warehousing


pigment


production sites and also owns titanium-rich ilmenite mines in China, is now the world’s third largest TiO2


pigment producer. The company


currently has capacity to make 650,000 tonnes of sulphate-process TiO2


pigment annually and has


added 360,000 tonnes/year of chloride-process TiO2


pigment capacity since 2018. TiO2 pigment is manufactured using either the


sulphate or chloride process. Compared to the sulphate process, TiO2


pigment produced via the


chloride process has distinct properties and performance characteristics that make it the preferred choice for some applications, including plastic compounds. Commercial production from the first of Lomon


Billion’s two new chloride lines began in 2019 and from the second line in the first half of last year. The


company further expanded its chloride TiO2 manufacturing capacity in June 2019 with the acquisition of a plant at Chuxiong in the south west of China from Xinli Titanium. This has since been refurbished extensively and was restarted in January of this year, adding around 60,000 tonnes of additional annual capacity.


32 PIPE & PROFILE EXTRUSION | January/February 2021


Lomon Billions has a technical cooperation


contract with Ti-Cons, a Germany-based consul- tancy specialising in TiO2


pigment manufacturing


technology and with special expertise in the chloride process. The company plans to construct more chloride- production lines at Chuxiong. These


process TiO2


new lines, along with some debottlenecking of current capacity, will eventually increase annual chloride-process TiO2


production capacity to around capacity at the site to around


300,000 tonnes, pushing the company’s chloride- process TiO2


600,000 tonnes a year. Aside from the capacity expansions, the com- pany opened a new sales and technical centre in Shanghai in May of last year. It has also been expanding its European operations. “We opened our European office in Stockton On Tees in the UK in 2014,” said Julie Reid, Lomon Billions marketing director. “The European team has grown signifi- cantly. We’ve employed more people from the area to help us with sales support, finance, and regula- tory affairs. We’ve also added new warehouse facilities in Europe so that we can deliver from local stock with short lead times.” Lomon Billions now has European warehouses in the UK, France, Italy, Spain, Germany, and Poland and says that more locations are under review. The company makes no secret of its strategic invest- ment plans to grow its business and to strengthen its competitiveness through vertical and horizontal integration. “The company has vigorous development plans,” said Lomon Billions chairman Gang Xu.


“They include investment in innovative TiO2 pigment manufacturing technology, increasing vertical integration into feedstock, and expansion of our chloride TiO2


pigment manufacturing


capacity still further. We aim to become the global market leader in the TiO2


manufacturing industry


by the mid 2020’s.” The company is also making substantial


www.pipeandprofile.com


IMAGE: LOMONS BILLIONS


IMAGE: LOMONS BILLIONS


Page 1  |  Page 2  |  Page 3  |  Page 4  |  Page 5  |  Page 6  |  Page 7  |  Page 8  |  Page 9  |  Page 10  |  Page 11  |  Page 12  |  Page 13  |  Page 14  |  Page 15  |  Page 16  |  Page 17  |  Page 18  |  Page 19  |  Page 20  |  Page 21  |  Page 22  |  Page 23  |  Page 24  |  Page 25  |  Page 26  |  Page 27  |  Page 28  |  Page 29  |  Page 30  |  Page 31  |  Page 32  |  Page 33  |  Page 34  |  Page 35  |  Page 36  |  Page 37  |  Page 38  |  Page 39  |  Page 40  |  Page 41  |  Page 42  |  Page 43  |  Page 44