DSM ANNOUNCES MAJOR CAPACITY EXPANSION FOR STANYL®

DSM Engineering Plastics has announced two further capacity increases for its successful range of Stanyl high performance polyamide products.

The first of these capacity increases is a debottlenecking project at the Stanyl polymer production plant in Geleen. This project, which has already been announced, is expected to be completed in Q4 2004 and will yield an additional 20% capacity.

At the same time engineering has started for a second Stanyl production plant, able to deliver up to 100% additional capacity, for start-up in the second half of 2007. The preferred location for this plant is Geleen, integrating it with the existing plant. However, an alternative site in China is also being evaluated. A final decision for the investment and the location of this plant will be made in the latter half of 2005. Debottlenecking of the current DAB (DiAminoButane) plant in Geleen will provide the required additional raw material - which can be shipped to the new Stanyl 2 plant, wherever it will be built.

According to Jos Goessens, Business Group Director for DSM Engineering Plastics, these capacity increases aim to maintain further Stanyl growth. "We are realizing a sustained steep growth in sales of Stanyl and these capacity investments support this growth. Stanyl is a high performance, high temperature polyamide which has an unmatched combination of the performance of high heat resins with the ease of processing and design usually found with standard engineering plastics. The unique features of Stanyl deliver value to customers across a broad range of applications in automotive, electronics and other high-end industries and this is creating strong demand growth. Stanyl contributes to component cost reduction, delivers longer component lifetimes and improves reliability. It is also in the forefront of innovations in many new applications for plastics, like infill panels in aircraft engines, connectors for the telecom and electronics industries, automotive sensors for use under the hood and electronic throttle control gears in new Japanese cars. Stanyl serves a global market with sales well balanced between the three regions of Americas, Asia and Europe.” He added: "Stanyl delivers the best performance of all high temperature polyamides in demanding applications and often outperforms other high-heat polymers such as Polyphenylene Sulfide (PPS) and Liquid Crystal Polymers (LCP's)."