Affected by Idemitsu Kosan, Mitsui Chemicals will Reduce Business

On November 30, ICIS reported: As part of its business restructuring, Japan's Mitsui Chemicals is considering reducing its domestic phenol business and optimizing its domestic cracker and polyolefin businesses in order to transform into a specialty chemicals producer by the end of this decade.

The reason why Mitsui Chemicals is "preparing to reduce the size of its domestic phenol/acetone plant" is that Japanese manufacturer Idemitsu Kosan has decided to exit the bisphenol A (BPA) business by October 2024 due to oversupply. Phenol and acetone are raw materials for the production of bisphenol A. According to data from the ICIS supply and demand database, Mitsui Chemicals' Chiba plant can produce 114,000 tons of acetone and 190,000 tons of phenol per year; the Sakai plant can produce 120,000 tons of acetone and 200,000 tons of phenol per year.

On November 21, Mitsui Chemicals stated that it intends to close the polyethylene terephthalate (PET) plant at the Iwakuni Otake Plant in October 2024 after determining that "it is no longer possible to obtain profits from domestic PET resin production." .

As announced in March 2022, the company's 400,000-ton-per-year purified terephthalic acid (PTA) plant at the same site also closed permanently this year.

In the polyolefin business, Mitsui Chemicals said that after its subsidiary Prime Polymers closed a polypropylene (PP) production line with an annual output of 110,000 tons at its Chiba production base in March 2023, the company will use "multi-company cooperation" way to consider optimization solutions. Prime Polymers' new 200,000 tons/year polypropylene plant is expected to be commissioned in 2024. The plant is part of Mitsui Chemicals' plan to restructure the existing production system under the Scrap Remanufacturing Law.

On November 28, Mitsui Chemicals stated at an investor promotion conference that the company is stepping up its efforts to become a global specialty chemicals company by 2030. "This will include work such as optimizing the production settings of the cracking unit." Mitsui Chemical's two cracking units have a total ethylene production capacity of approximately 1.1 million tons per year.

Mitsui Chemicals plans to develop a "ideal state" plan for its cracker by the end of fiscal 2025, which may include optimizing capacity based on demand fundamentals. The company operates naphtha crackers in Chiba Prefecture and Sakai City, Osaka Prefecture. The Sakai cracker can produce 500,000 tons of ethylene (C₂) per year, and the Chiba plant can produce 612,000 tons of C₂ per year.