news | Analysis


Lanxess aims for balance in PA6 value chain


The Lillo facility in Antwerp harbour, which started caprolactam production in 1967, has received €300m investment since 2004 On the 50th anniversary of


the Lillo caprolactam and polyamide facility near Antwerp, Lanxess explained the major changes it has made since 2011. David Eldridge reports


Lanxess has been going through a transformation from a primarily Europe-based intermediates business to a true global player in engineer- ing plastics, says Michael Zobel, head of the German company’s high performance materials business. Investments in caprolactam and polyamide 6 production at its Lillo facility in Belgium have continued at the same time as Lanxess has grown its global network of compounding facilities. At a media day at the Lillo plant, Zobel explained the group is now working to complete a balanced value chain in which it utilises the lion’s share of the intermediates it produces in its


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own high value polymers. “This is our vision, we want to become a fully balanced player by 2020,” said Zobel. One indication of its


integrated approach is the group’s recent acquisition of Chemtura, which produces flame retardants, lubricants and other additives. This acquisition fits well in the Lanxess strategy, as it already has its own additives produc- tion (the Rhein Chemie business) and is the only engineering polymer com- pounder with its own chopped glass fibre production, at the Kallo facility near to Lillo in Antwerp Harbour. Lanxess calls the Antwerp


production plants the “back- bone” of its plastics business. This is because they serve the group’s new compounding network, but also because they have supported its plastics business for such a long time. In April, it was the 50th


INJECTION WORLD | May/June 2017


anniversary of the start of caprolactam production at the Lillo site. Since 2004, when Lanxess was formed from some of the plastics and chemicals assets of Bayer Group, there has been €300m in investment at Lillo. In 2004, the Lillo facility had


a capacity of 160,000 tpa of caprolactam and its current capacity is 220,000 tpa. Since the plant came on stream 50 years ago, 6.35m tonnes of caprolactam has been produced.


In 2014, Lanxess started


PA 6 production at a new polymerisation plant con- nected directly to the caprolac- tam production facility at Lillo. Its annual capacity is 90,000 tonnes. The polyamide is shipped from Antwerp to the group’s global network of com- pounding facilities in Germany, USA, Brazil, India and China. In April this year, Matthias Zachert, Chairman of the Board of Management at Lanxess, announced the group would invest approximately


The PA6 polymerisation plant at the Lillo facility opened in 2014 www.injectionworld.com


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