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Shin-Etsu: Reliable in PVC

 

 

Shin-Etsu: Reliable in PVC

Shin-Etsu is the leading company in PVC manufacturing worldwide. We provide reliable key materials used in construction, homes and everyday products. Through continuous investment in our plants we aim to meet the growing demand of PVC in Europe and worldwide.

The materials we supply are of a high and consistent quality. Our organization is known for its pragmatic approach, combined with our quick response times and strong logistics services. This makes us a reliable partner for our customers in the European market. 

 

Key facts & figures

Our European production network is part of the largest PVC manufacturer in the world, with a total capacity of 4.15 Million tons and total turnover of more than $4.7 billion. Shin-Etsu has achieved these production capacities by implementing its own advanced PVC production technology .


The high growth of production is in line with the philosophy of the Japanese company Shin-Etsu Chemical, which is to set-up world scale plants with high and stable operating rates that give Shin-Etsu its competitive advantage.


Shin-Etsu’s worldwide PVC network comprises in total of six production sites, of which one is located in Japan, three in the USA and two in Europe.

Shin-Etsu in Rotterdam

Production of PVC in the Netherlands goes back to 1949, when a predecessor of Shell started a PVC production plant in Pernis. In 1970 AkzoNobel started with the VCM production in the harbour of Botlek.
 

In order to maintain a strong position on the PVC market, both companies formed the joint-venture Rovin in 1982. In the year 1992 Rovin started up a complete new PVC plant based on Shin-Etsu reactor technology.
 

 

In 1999 the Japanese company Shin-Etsu Chemical took over the PVC and VCM operations in the port of Rotterdam. Since then Shin-Etsu has invested considerably and has increased its production to meet the growing demand of its customers in Europe. With a two-phased expansion project, capacity was first increased with changes in the plant set up. In 2006 Shin-Etsu installed an additional reactor and reached its current capacity of 450kt of PVC production.

 

In this period Shin-Etsu also made significant investments to increase its  VCM production and to safeguard reliable operations at the same time. The most important projects were the expansion of the cracking furnaces, the installation of a new oxychlorination section and the modernization of the control room.
 

With these investments, our production facilities in Rotterdam became one of the largest plants in the European PVC industry.
 

Cires Portugal

Further growth in Europe was realized in 2009 when the close partnership with the company Cires in Portugal was further intensified in the form of a merger. Already in 1960 Shin-Etsu was responsible for building the Cires PVC plant, which made Shin-Etsu the first Japanese chemical company to expand overseas.

 

Also in Portugal various expansion projects in cooperation with Shin-Etsu has resulted in the current PVC capacity of 210kt. For more information on Cires: www.cires.pt.