Solvay today announced it will invest €75 million to build a new 85,000 ton per year Highly Dispersible Silica (HDS) plant in Wloclawek Poland. Combined with a further capacity expansion at its site in Qingdao (China), these two investments will increase Solvay’s global highly dispersible silica production capacity by an additional 30%. Located in central Poland, close to key energy distribution and the new Warsaw-Gdansk highway, the new plant will offer logistical benefits to customers in Eastern Europe and Russia, according to a company press release. The site is a designated Special Economic Zone (SEZ) integrated within the industrial site of Anwil, a subsidiary of the Polish refining and energy company PKN Orlen. The completion is expected in the third quarter of 2014.
Among other HDS products, the new plant will produce Zeosil® PREMIUM®, Solvay’s latest generation of highly dispersible silica, used by tire manufacturers in the production of energy-saving tires. According to Solvay, tire labelling regulation has led to a four-fold increase in Zeosil® PREMIUM® adoption over the past year, and the company expects this strong growth to continue.
Solvay also plans to add production capacity to its Qingdao plant (China) which started-up in 2010. This expansion is already underway and scheduled for completion by the end of 2013. It will elevate the capacity of the site to 112,000 tons per year.
These investments follow volume expansions in France (2012), the US (2011), and a new plant in Qingdao, China (2010). Upon the completion of these projects, Solvay’s worldwide highly dispersible silica annual production capacity will stand close to 500,000 tons, doubling from pre-2010 levels.