MOSCPW (MRC) -- State-controlled Grupa Azoty, one of Poland's largest plastics and fertiliser manufacturers, has announced that it will invest in a new propylene plant at its site in Police in the country's north-west, said Fibre2fashion.
The USD450 million investment will create the largest such plant in Europe by 2019, and is the largest undertaking in the company's history, media reports said.
The investment, the largest in the company's history, will create Europe's biggest production plant for propylene, a critical chemical in the production of plastics and solvents, used in a range of products including car parts, carpets and toys.
Poland's Treasury Minister Wlodzimierz Karpinski told journalists in Warsaw, Friday, that the construction of the plant will create 1,000 jobs and an additional 200 jobs for highly qualified employees for the servicing of this investment.
The initial project for the plant was drafted 6 years ago, with Grupa Azoty deliberating a number of sites for the investment. The new plant is capable of producing 400,000 tonnes of propylene a year and will begin production in 2019. This is expected to increase the Warsaw-listed company's annual revenue by 20 per cent to USD3.2bn. Currently, around 150,000 metric tonnes of propylene are processed in Poland annually.
Grupa Azoty is one of only a handful of Polish business giants that has managed to turn national dominance into international clout, amid long-overdue efforts by the country's government to encourage overseas expansion and investment in new business areas among its largest corporates.
Pawel Jarczewski, the company's chief executive, said the investment was of "istorical magnitude".
Europe is estimated to have a deficit of about 1,000 tonnes of propylene per year. The plant, to be built in Police on Poland's northern Baltic coast, will export 60 per cent of its production, the company said.
The investment is part of Grupa Azoty's planned USD2 billion capital expenditure push between now and 2020 and is expected to be funded by new financing.
As MRC informed earlier, in the late September 2015, Azoty launched construction of a PLN 320 million polyamid-6 plant at its Tarnow operations, southern Poland.
Grupa Azoty Spolka Akcyjna manufactures and sells mineral fertilizers, engineering plastics, and OXO alcohols in Poland, Germany, South America, Asia, Europe, and other European Union countries. It operates in Agro Fertilizers, Plastics, Chemical, Energy, and Other Activities segments. The company provides nitrogen fertilizers, nitrogen fertilizers with sulfur content, compound fertilizers, and phosphorites; engineering plastics, including caprolactam, polyamide, polyacetal, cyclohexanone, and cyclohexanol; and chemicals comprising oxo alcohols, plasticizers, titanium dioxide, tytanpol, melamine, maleic anhydride.
MRC