Lanxess invests in chrome tanning value chain in South Africa
23/02/2012
The site's principal product is sodium dichromate, which is further processed into chrome tanning materials for the global leather industry. It is the only site of its kind in South Africa. The production technology requires permanent supply of highly concentrated CO2.
“This investment in South Africa marks another step within our BRICS strategy,” said Rainier van Roessel, member of the board of management at Lanxess, referring to its activity in the fastest developing economies in the world. “It allows the best possible capacity utilisation of our Newcastle plant and sets the basis for future expansion of our production.”
With its own CO2 concentration unit, Lanxess will become independent of the delivery capacity of external suppliers who
provided the CO2 until now. Construction of the new unit will start in the first quarter of 2012, and commissioning of the unit is planned for the second half of 2013. The investment will create up to 10 new jobs at the site.
Sodium dichromate production is based on CO2 pressure saturation, in which CO2 is used to convert sodium monochromate into sodium dichromate. The new unit will capture and filter exhaust air from steam production, concentrate the CO2 level up to 99% and feed it into the production process.
Mr van Roessel explained: “By using our own exhaust air to cater for the CO2 demand we cut down the CO2 emissions of our Newcastle plant by around 25%.”
Overall capacity of the Newcastle plant is around 70,000 tonnes of sodium dichromate per year.
Lanxess claims to be the world’s only company to cover the entire value creation chain for chrome-based leather chemicals. It operates a chrome ore mine in Rustenburg, in North West Province, making the company independent of external raw material suppliers. The chrome ore is processed in Newcastle into chrome chemicals, out of which high-grade tanning raw materials are made at another Lanxess site at Merebank, near Durban.
Managing director in South Africa, Karl Gassen, said on announcing the news that the new investment at Newcastle would strengthen the company's value chain for chrome-based specialty chemicals there and underline its strong commitment to the country and the community of Newcastle.
The group has approximately 1,000 employees in South Africa with 120 of them based at the Newcastle site.
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