Mitsui Chemicals opens second Singapore TAFMER plant

Japanese chemical giant Mitsui Chemicals plans to double its production capacity of TAFMER, a soft plastic used in things like food packaging materials, sports shoes and car bumpers.

It is aiming to produce 200,000 tonnes of the material through the combined output of two plants in Singapore.

Mitsui opened the second of the two plants Tuesday to produce the high performance plastic.

The plant, with an investment value of US$200 million, is the company's fifth globally.

The other three plants are in Japan.

Mitsui Chemicals, one of the largest producers of TAFMER, says that with the two Singapore plants, the country will account for two-thirds of Mitsui's global TAFMER production capacity.

Petrochemicals now make up 60 per cent of its total business.

In the last five years, Mitsui has been shifting its business focus from simple petrochemical products to more performance chemicals, like TAFMER and agricultural chemicals.

Toshikazu Tanaka, president and CEO of Mitsui Chemicals, said: "Full-scale commercial operations at our second plant is timely and we expect it to greatly contribute to our efforts to stabilise profitability from this year onwards."

Mitsui adds that its first Singapore TAFMER plant, which opened in 2003, was initially intended to be used for automotive bumpers.

But the financial crisis in 2008 affected the automotive industry, which in turn impacted the TAFMER plant.

Therefore, the company is moving to promote TAFMER in market segments that are not easily affected by economic conditions, like sports shoes, cables and packaging material for food.

It says these account for more than five per cent of TAFMER applications now.

When the second plant is completed, Mitsui Chemicals will employ a total of 330 people in Singapore.

The Mitsui plant will likely play a part in the development of Singapore's chemical industry.

Opening the facility, Trade and Industry Minister Lim Hng Kiang says plans are afoot to make operations on Jurong Island more competitive.

Mr Lim said: "We will need to further deepen these strengths and also develop new differentiating advantages. This will be the focus of the 'Jurong Island v2.0' initiative, a whole-of-government effort being undertaken in close cooperation with the chemicals industry. We intend to achieve new levels of competitiveness and sustainability for operations on Jurong Island.

"We are also looking at enhancing the sustainability of our chemicals industry through R&D in emerging areas such as biomass-to-chemicals conversion as well as carbon capture."

The chemical sector is one of the key drivers of Singapore's economy.

According to EDB data, the industry generated about $57 billion worth of manufacturing output in 2009.

This accounted for about one third of Singapore's overall manufacturing output for the year