Solvin to secure production in larger world-class plants
Vinyls Activities will be Discontinued in Ludwigshafen
SolVin announced its decision to shut down its vinyl chloride monomer (VCM) and polyvinyl chloride (PVC) operations in Ludwigshafen, Germany, on January 1, 2006 - as these operations are not run in world-scale plants.
Since this rationalization has been carefully planned, BASF, the operator of the plants, is confident that it will be able to secure new positions for the 167 workers concerned.
The reduced capacities will be partly rebuilt in other SolVin production sites, in an effort to further enhance the company's plants as larger, highly competitive, world scale operations. One or more sites will be selected to accommodate this capacity on the basis of their intrinsic competitiveness.
"Concentrating vinyls production in very large capacity, state-of-the-art, well-balanced plants has a doubly positive effect", said Nicolas-Paul Neu, Managing Director of SolVin. "We are enhancing our leadership through our improved competitiveness and securing our activities," he said.
The transfer of the production will be achieved without disturbing the delivery of different product grades to the market. This reorganization is aimed at ensuring long term partnership and excellent services for SolVin's customers.
SolVin was set up in 1999, when Solvay and BASF joined their competences in the vinyls sector. Solvay owns 75% of SolVin and BASF the remaining 25%. The synergies achieved in know-how and organization, the complementarity of product ranges as well as upstream integration have built up SolVin as a leader on the PVC and PVDC markets. The joint venture has operations in France, Germany, Italy, Spain and the Benelux countries and a total capacity of some 1.3 million tonnes of PVC. SolVin generated consolidated sales of EUR 1.1 billion in 2002, with 2,100 employees.
