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Shenzhen, China (ICIS) – UAE polyolefins producer Borouge plans to double its capacity for cross-linked polyethylene (XLPE), a specialty polymer, to 160,000 tonnes/year by 2025, company CEO Rainer Hoefling told ICIS.
Borouge has an 80,000 t/y XLPE capacity at its manufacturing site in Ruwais, Abu Dhabi.
“A customer installed 99km with our XLPE [kilometre] long high voltage[age] underwater cable [an] Offshore wind farms,” Hoefling said.
XLPE has greater tensile strength, elongation and impact resistance than other PE products. It has applications in high/extra high voltage cables and submarine cables.
The planned XLPE capacity addition will strengthen its position in specialty materials.
Borouge’s goal is to 1.4 million tons/year in 2025.
“Currently, about 45 percent of Borouge’s business is in infrastructure,” Hoefling said, noting that this sets the company apart from other polyolefin commodities companies.
“The average commodity player in the polyolefins market might have 80% of their business in the packaging business,” he said.
Borouge will continue to focus on serving the Asia, Middle East and Africa markets.
“These regions will remain the growth engines, likely to see consumption growth of 6 percent,” Hoefling said.
In 2022, the Asia-Pacific region will account for about 60% of Borouge’s overall business, and the Middle East and Africa combined will account for 30%.
The UAE-based polymer producer hopes to continue to accelerate its efforts to provide customers with differentiated and sustainable solutions to drive future growth, Hoefling said.
“We’ve been focused on differentiating our polyolefins business, which is how we’ve positioned ourselves for the last 25 years. Whether it’s pipe, wire or packaging, that’s going to continue,” he said.
In China, Borouge’s main market, the company is working with local companies to develop solutions to meet growing demand for sustainable and recyclable products, the Borouge chief executive said.
One of the latest initiatives is a Heavy Duty Shipping Sack (HDSS) solution that adds 30% post-consumer recycled (PCR) content from used polyethylene HDSS to make new HDSS applications.
This is a cooperation with Chinese plastic product manufacturers such as Hanwang Plastic Machinery, Kunshan Jinmeng, Shanghai Longshi and Shanghai Tianqiang.
Borouge has also developed solutions for incorporating PCR polyolefins in courier bags, shrink films, non-food bottles and caps.
interview article author Fanny Zhang
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