Cabot Corporation is ramping up capacity for carbon black. This will involve expansion at one of its factories, operational improvements and debottlenecking projects, which will ultimately expand its global capacity by over 300,000 metric tons.
Bart Kalkstein, senior vice president and president for reinforcement materials, said, “With our plants operating at high utilization levels, these investments will enable us to maintain our position as a leader in the carbon black industry and to offer our customers the security of reliable supply and availability of premium products that they have come to expect from Cabot.”
Cabot will add approximately 160,000 metric tons of capacity through an expansion at its facility in Cilegon, Indonesia, in order to better serve the Southeast Asia market, which is growing at 4-5% per year. Cabot anticipates that the product will be available in late 2020 or early 2021.
Jeff Zhu, president, Asia-Pacific, said, “Our tire and industrial rubber customers are making significant investments in Southeast Asia, and as their preferred partner, they are looking to us to provide the raw materials for their new investments.
“We appreciate the support of the Indonesian government who have been great partners since we began operations in 1988. This capacity expansion clearly demonstrates our ongoing commitment to delivering high quality products and services from local supply sources.”
In addition to the expansion at Cilegon, Cabot is investing approximately US$50m in debottlenecking projects and operational improvements across 18 of its carbon black facilities. This program will provide an additional 150,000 metric tons of increased carbon black capacity which will be available for tire, industrial rubber and specialty carbon customers.
Cabot has already completed approximately one-third of this capacity expansion. The investments will increase the company’s global carbon black capacity to approximately 2.5 million metric tons.
Sean Keohane, president and chief executive officer, added, “Part of our corporate strategy is to invest for growth in our core businesses. These actions clearly showcase our commitment to be the partner of choice for our customers, not only for today, but into the future.
“Adding this new capital efficient capacity will provide a lever for growth for our reinforcement materials and performance chemicals segments and contribute to the execution of our corporate financial and strategic objectives.”
