Huntsman to begin capacity expansion at Singapore Polyetheramines plant

Huntsman Corporation has announced it will begin construction on a 25,000t capacity expansion programme at its world-scale polyetheramine facility in Singapore in the first half of 2015, taking total capacity to 50,000t/yr.

Huntsman is investing US$100M for this latest expansion at its Jurong Island facility, which will also include backward integration to produce polyethers from locally sourced feedstocks. This project is intended to help the company meet growing global demand for polyetheramines and to strengthen its leadership position in this technology.

Construction of the new facilities is expected to be completed in the second half of 2016.

"We expect demand for our amines products to increase across all regions over the next decade, particularly in Asia Pacific – where volume is set to grow by at least 10%/yr,” noted Huntsman President and CEO, Peter R Huntsman.

"Combined with our other existing polyetheramine manufacturing facilities in Conroe, Texas and Llanelli, Wales, the expansion at our Jurong site will help us respond more quickly to customer demand, not only in the rapidly growing Asia market, but also around the globe,” Stu Monteith, President of Huntsman’s Performance Products division added.

Polyetheramines are used as ingredients to improve the properties of many products, including paint, adhesives and composites. They can be found in everything from home decoration products, sports equipment, cars, construction materials, washing powders and speciality plastics.