DORMAGEN, Germany—Lanxess A.G. has completed an expansion of its Baypren polychloroprene solid rubber production operation in Dormagen.
The firm said it invested about $24.5 million in the project, which will increase the annual production capacity of the facility by 10 percent to 63,000 metric tons. The expansion took about three years to complete.
Stefan Rittmann, head of Lanxess' chloroprene rubber business line, said the investment includes development costs for the dry finishing process in addition to the new elements for the Dormagen site, including extruders, nozzle coagulation units, underwater pelletizer and other equipment.
“This investment is further proof of our leading know-how in the field of high performance synthetic rubber,” Werner Breuers, member of Lanxess' board of management, said in a statement. “By expanding our Baypren plant, we are providing the market with new impetus and demonstrating our strength to our customers.”
Rittmann said employment will not increase in conjunction with this expansion. The Dormagen site employs about 1,000, which the firm said is the third largest Lanxess production site in Germany.
The Baypren unit within the plant employs about 250 and is part of the high performance elastomers business, which falls under Lanxess' performance polymers segment. The segment recorded sales of about $6.13 billion in 2013.
The Dormagen site is Lanxess' only chloroprene rubber facility. Rittmann said its new technology has been used for some of its other synthetic rubber manufacturing sites for many years, but this is the first time the technology will be used for CR.