NEW MARTINSVILLE, W.Va. (May 25)—Bayer MaterialScience has ceased production of toluene diisocyanate at its New Martinsville plant as part of a capacity consolidation process into world-scale facilities.
The closing affects 30 employees, who will be reassigned to other jobs, Bayer said.
"This closing completed the restructuring and consolidation of Bayer's TDI business that we have outlined in the past," said Jim Newport, general plant manager at New Martinsville.
Over the last three years, Bayer has consolidated TDI production into factories in Baytown, Texas, and Dormagen and Brunsbuttel, Germany. Another world-scale TDI facility is planned for Caojing, China, which is expected to come on stream in 2009, Bayer added. New Martinsville represented 50,000 metric tons of annual capacity.
Bayer said New Martinsville would continue to produce other isocyanates and polyols, coatings raw materials and thermoplastic polyurethanes, but said that a proportionate amount of by-product hydrochloric acid production at New Martinsville would cease as a result of the TDI phase-out.