Wacker Strengthens its Presence in
Middle and South America region
Wacker Chemie AG is strategically expanding its presence in the Middle
and South American growth region.
Consequently, the Munich-based chemical company is extending its existing
technical center in São Paulo, Brazil,
and creating a new technical center in
Mexico City, Mexico. At the same time,
the Group’s international training center – the Wacker Academy – will also be
expanded at the former site, and a new
one opened at the latter. Both projects
are scheduled for completion in the first
quarter of 2013. For this purpose, Wacker
is investing $1.2 million.
“Middle and South America are key
future markets for Wacker,” said president
and CEO Rudolf Staudigl. “Our sales in
these regions have grown by an annual av-
erage of 15 percent over the past five years.
Increasing demand for state-of-the-art,
high-quality solutions leads us to expect
continued growth rates for our silicone and
polymer businesses in the years to come.
We meet our customers’ growing demand
by enhancing our local services.”
In Brazil, the Group is enlarging its
technical center in Jandira near São Paulo.
This center has been supporting custom-
ers in the development of new products
and applications since 2003, taking local
raw materials and environmental condi-
tions into consideration. The expansion
focuses mainly on the labs for dispersible
polymer powders, which are used in dry-
mix mortars for concrete applications,
tile adhesives and sealing slurries. The test
area for polymer binders available at the
technical center will more than triple in
size and the new labs will get state-of-the-
art testing equipment in line with interna-
tional standards. In addition, the Wacker
Academy training center will be equipped
with a new, larger training lab, which will
allow participants to carry out extensive
practical tests.
Polymer binders are also the focal point
of the new technical center that Wacker
is currently building in the southwest of
Mexico’s capital. The reason for this is the
strong growth of the regional economy,
especially of the construction and paint industries, the company reports. Covering an
area of more than 800 square meters, the
facility will house the new offices of the local sales subsidiary Wacker Mexicana S.A.
and the R&D labs for dispersible polymer
powders and vinyl acetate-ethylene copolymer (VAE) dispersions. These binders
find application in paints, coatings and
adhesives. Due to the rising number of
training inquiries from the region, a training center for the Spanish-speaking market
will be created with the Wacker Academy
Mexico. Bundling sales, applications laboratories and the training center under one
roof will foster closer teamwork between
the sales and development teams and thus
optimize customer support in the region.
Both the expansion of the technical center in Brazil and the opening of a new one
in Mexico are scheduled for completion in
the first quarter of 2013. In the future, the
technical center in Mexico will support customers from Mexico, Belize, Guatemala,
El Salvador, Honduras, Nicaragua, Costa
Rica, Panama, the Caribbean, Columbia,
Ecuador, Peru, Venezuela and Bolivia. The
technical center in Brazil will continue as
the South American hub for customers
from Argentina, Brazil, Chile, Paraguay
and Uruguay.
Byk Receives Altana
Innovation Award 2012
A Byk innovation team has won the 2012
Altana Innovation Award. The prize was
awarded for high performance CRP wetting and dispersing additives for sophisticated coatings applications. The prize
awards technically outstanding innovations
that are already successful in the market.
The presentation of the prize took place
at the 5th International Altana Innovation
Conference held in Wesel, Germany.
Approximately 160 top researchers and
developers of the specialty chemicals Group
from all over the world gathered at the 5th
international Innovation Conference to discuss technical and economic developments
as well as future innovative trends.
BASF Opens Dispersions
Plant in Huizhou
BASF inaugurated its new dispersions plant
in Daya Bay Petrochemical Industrial Park
in Huizhou, China. The new plant will produce styrene butadiene (XSB) dispersions
and styrene acrylic (SA) dispersions. XSB
dispersions are mainly used as coating binders for paper, while SA dispersions are used
in paint and coatings, printing and packaging, construction materials and adhesives.
The new plant in Huizhou, together
with BASF’s existing eight dispersions
plants located in China, Indonesia, India,
Japan and Australia will expand BASF’s
regional manufacturing footprint and
dispersions capacity. It will meet the
growing demands of key customers who
serve Asia’s fast growing consumer markets, according to the company.
“This new dispersions plant strengthens our commitment to the fast growing
paint and coatings market in China, and
the increased capacity helps to expand
the local production network,” said Gops
Pillay, senior vice president, dispersions
and pigments, Asia Pacific, BASF. “BASF
will continue to strengthen the research
and development footprint in China that
equips us with more resources to develop
innovative products to tap into additional market opportunities.”
Sachtleben Awarded
Green Raw Material
Supplier Award
The fifth annual “Green Industrial
Coatings Asia” combined fair and sym-
posium was held in Shanghai on October
23-24. The focus was on environmentally
friendly coatings systems including the
latest developments of binder systems,
pigments and additives, which fulfill the
criteria to be “green.”
Experts from companies, including
