Equity transfer for 1 yuan! Mitsubishi Chemical completely withdraws from Taiwan MMA production base

Deal Closed: Mitsubishi Chemical Transfers Entire Controlling Stake in KMC for NT$1

On August 3, 2026, Mitsubishi Chemical Corporation of Japan completed the equity delivery, transferring its entire 60% stake in Kaohsiung Monomer Co., Ltd. (KMC) to its partner CPC Corporation, Taiwan (CPDC). The consideration for this transaction was merely NT$1.

Kaohsiung Monomer (KMC) was established in 1976 as a joint venture between Mitsubishi Chemical and CPC Corporation, Taiwan, with its base located in Kaohsiung. Mitsubishi Chemical held a 60% stake through its subsidiary Lucite, while CPC Corporation, Taiwan held 40%. The enterprise uses the Acetone Cyanohydrin (ACH) process to produce MMA monomers, with an annual capacity of 105,000 tons, making it the largest specialized producer of acrylic raw materials in the Taiwan region.

For nearly fifty years, KMC has been an important component of Mitsubishi Chemical's MMA business layout in Asia. The plant's capacity utilization has remained stable for a long time, with product supply covering numerous downstream application fields such as construction, automotive, and electronics. This equity deliveryalso marks Mitsubishi Chemical's formal exit from Taiwan's MMA production business.

Root Cause of Exit: Mainland China's Capacity Expansion Reshapes Asian MMA Competitive Landscape

Mitsubishi Chemical clarified the core reason for its exit in an official announcement: impacted by the massive capacity expansion in Mainland China, competition in the Asian MMA market has become increasingly fierce. The company re-evaluated the strategic value of its Taiwan MMA production base and ultimately made the decision to withdraw.

Since 2020, domestic MMA capacity has seen explosive growth. By the end of 2025,total domestic MMA capacity reached 2.855 million tons/year, achieving a growth of more than double compared to 2020. China has risen to become the world's largest MMA producer, with a five-year compound annual growth rate exceeding 18%, and the industry's expansion pace continues.

Domestic enterprises such as Wanhua Chemical, Jiangsu Sirbang, Chongqing Yixiang, Zhejiang Petrochemical, and Lihuayi have become the main forces in this round of capacity expansion. Relying on integrated advantages across the entire industry chain, domestic manufacturers have secured upstream key raw materials like acrylonitrile and acetone, and extended downstream to the PMMA particle industry chain, building a solid cost competitive barrier.

In sharp contrast,the local MMA production cost of Japanese chemical companies is 30%-40% higher than that of domestic manufacturers. Core raw materials like propylene are highly dependent on imports from the Middle East, placing them at a disadvantage in market competition. In 2025, the spot price of MMA in East China once fell to near 9,000 yuan/ton, a five-year low, and the average production profit for the C4 process was only -35 yuan/ton. The industry's plight is not a short-term cyclical fluctuation, but a structural reversal of the supply-demand pattern.

Collective Withdrawal of Japanese Chemical Firms; Multiple Companies Successively Divest MMA Monomer Businesses

Mitsubishi Chemical's departure is not an isolated case; the entire Japanese chemical sector is continuously shrinking its presence in the basic MMA chemicals track.

At the end of 2024,Asahi Kasei shut down its MMA plant in Thailand; in May 2025, Asahi Kasei further announced a complete exit from the MMA monomer business, planning to stop production and sales in September 2026, while simultaneously contracting related businesses such as acrylic resins and SB latex, similarly attributing the cause to the supply-demand imbalance brought about by China's capacity expansion.

In December 2025,Kuraray sold its entire stake in Kuraray Acrylic (Zhangjiagang) to Jiangsu Shuangxiang Group. Prior to this, Kuraray had already reduced local MMA capacity from 67,000 tons to 33.500 tons and stopped external commodity sales. Sumitomo Chemical is also continuously compressing MMA-related capacity.

Mitsubishi Chemical's own capacity clearance actions have been even more intensive: in 2022, it closed a 200,000 tons/year MMA plant in the UK; in July 2024, it shut down a 107,000 tons/year ACH process MMA production line in Hiroshima, and simultaneously cancelled a 350,000 tons Alpha process MMA new project in Louisiana, USA. Combined with this exit from the Taiwan KMC project, Mitsubishi Chemical has cumulatively reduced its MMA capacity scale by over 640,000 tons/year.

Strategic Pivot: Abandoning Bulk Chemicals, Focusing on High-Value-Added Specialty Materials

Behind the contraction of basic MMA capacity lies Mitsubishi Chemical's clear strategic transformation logic: shifting the business focus from scale-oriented to profit-oriented, gradually withdrawing from the bulk commodities track,and tilting resources towards high-value-added specialty materials.

As one of the few industry leaders globally mastering all three MMA process technologies—ACH method, C4 Isobutene Oxidation method, and Alpha Ethylene method—Mitsubishi Chemical still retains approximately 1.5 million tons/year of global MMA capacity, with a global market share close to 40%. The enterprise will concentrate resources on production bases with competitive advantages and focus on exploring high-growth specialty material niche markets.

Changes in business layout are also reflected in investment directions in Mainland China. In June 2026, Mitsubishi Chemical's Changshu high-performance materials project was launched, focusing on the field of advanced specialty materials and no longer arranging basic chemical products like MMA, fully embodying the enterprise's new investment strategy.