Singapore (Platts)--10Jun2011/105 am EDT/505 GMT
South Korea's Samsung BP Chemicals will increase the capacity of its 470,000 mt/year acetic acid plant in Ulsan by about 20% to 570,000 mt/year by the end of October, a company source said late Thursday. The expansion work will take place in September, during a month-long shutdown planned earlier. The plant is now operating at slightly above full capacity, said the source, who added that while acetic acid "demand has been bad," the expansion will help Samsung BP take advantage of market opportunities and keep pace with its competitors. The new capacity will require about 30,000 mt/year of additional feedstock methanol. "We can take larger [feedstock] volumes from our contract supplier, or buy on the spot market if the price is better," said the source. Samsung BP Chemicals is a joint venture between BP (51%) and Samsung (49%).--Baoying Ng, bao_ying_ng@platts.comSimilar stories appear in Platts Asian Petrochemical Scan. See more information at http://www.platts.com/Products.aspx?xmlFile=asianpetrochemicalscan.xml