MAILIAO, Taiwan—Specialty materials firm Kraton Corp. will open a new plant making hydrogenated styrenic block copolymers in Taiwan on May 12.
The plant—co-owned by Formosa Petrochemical Corp. of Taiwan—will be located in Mailiao and will have annual production capacity of almost 70 million pounds. It will support Kraton's innovation-grade business, particularly low molecular weight HSBC products, officials with Houston-based Kraton said in a May 9 news release.
HSBC polymers provide toughness and clarity in olefin-based compounds used in automotive, medical and film applications, they added.
The plant will employ about 100 and will include a process and product lab that can make low viscosity products. In the release, President and CEO Kevin Fogarty said that the new site "will enable Kraton to serve the growing Asian and export markets more effectively than ever before through higher production capacity of our differentiated grades of HSBC."
Kraton's polymers are used in a wide range of applications, including adhesives, coatings, consumer and personal care products, sealants and lubricants, and paving and roofing applications. The firm posted sales of more than $1.7 billion in 2016.