business
Polycarbonates: Bright spot for a few producers
P
olycarbonates are a growing prod- glass as car windows. He projects this uct area for just a few companies— market, which is essentially nonexistent because there are just a few major today, will reach a level of 1.3 billion lb producers. Dominated by General Electric, per year worldwide by 2009. Bayer is Bayer, and Dow Chemical, producers ex- working with at least five major automopect worldwide markets to grow as much bile companies on development. as 10% per year through 2002, depending Polycarbonate resins and blends are on the application and geography. Surpris- used in other automotive applicationsingly, they still anticipate much growth, al- such as instrument panels, body panels, though it may be slowing somewhat, from and interior pieces. This is still a strong the Asia-Pacific region. market, but polycarbonates face growing This optimistic outlook is leading to competition from polypropylene. Although polycarbonate producers capacity additions by some producers. In October, Bayer started a 110 million-lb- tout the new use of their materials in car per-year expansion at its Baytown, Tex- windows, one industry consultant calls as, site, bringing total polycarbonate this "blowing smoke." He agrees that polycapacity there to about 400 million lb. carbonates can reduce weight, increase Bayer also produces the plastic in Le- design freedom, and offer some security verkusen, Germany, and Antwerp, Bel- and possibly safety advantages, but he gium; and it is building a plant in Map Ta warns that the material does not perform Phut, Thailand. The company says "plans as well as glass and can't yet be used in are in hand" for an 88 million-lr>per-year most automobile window applications. plant in China by 2003. In Thailand and In March, Bayer and GE Plastics creatBaytown, it also is increasing capacity for ed a 50-50 joint venture called Exatec the raw material bisphenol A. that will invest about $40 million over At Bayer's Baytown plant opening in the next few years in research, technoloOctober, H. Lee Noble, executive vice gy, and equipment to enable the broad president of Bayer Corp. and president use of abrasion-resistant, coated polycarof its polymers division, estimated de- bonate windows in automobiles. "Our fomand growth in the U.S. at 6% per year cus is on developing and validating this through 2002, 8% per year for Western technology," Ralf Dujardin, Exatec vice Europe, and 9% per year in Japan. Ac- president for technology, said when the cording to his data, combined demand venture was set up. "We have a long way for these three regions has nearly tripled to go and a lot of work to do, but we're in the past 10 years, with the most dra- confident that we can accomplish our goal of having polycarbonate window matic growth in Japan. A major driver, Noble said, is use of systems on high-volume automobiles in the engineering resin in optical discs- seven or eight years." compact discs (CD) and newer digital versatile discs (DVD). In ~ ~ less than 10 years, this has beGE dominates in come one of the largest growth polycarbonate capacity markets. To meet demand, Teijin Polycarbonate Singapore, a venMitsubishi Gas Chemical
