Birla Carbon, part of Aditya Birla Group, has announced the construction of a new 240 KTPY carbon black plant to be built in Jining, Shandong province, China. The $190 million plant, which broke ground in late February, is a joint venture between Columbian Chemicals (Jining) and China’s Jining Carbon Group. The plant is located at the Jibei High-tech Industrial Park in Jining, and construction will consist of two phases, each with 120,000 tonnes per year of capacity. Each phase will consist of six production lines using wet granulation technique. Phase 1 is scheduled to be completed in mid-2016, while Phase 2 is expected to be completed two-to-three years after phase 1 (i.e., 2018 or 2019). (Note that the RubberNews article linked here has a slightly different timetable than the Birla press release, with Phase 1 due in October 2015 and Phase 2 due in December 2017 — the original dates seem more realistic.)
Columbian Chemicals, a Birla Carbon subsidiary, will provide the process technology while Jining Carbon will provide the feedstocks, including carbon black oil and anthracene oil, from an existing coal tar distillation plant at the site. Birla Carbon said the facility is contingent upon receiving final internal and regulatory approvals of the joint venture between Birla Carbon, Jining Carbon and International Finance Corp.