On September 18, Cabot Corporation held the opening ceremony for its new black masterbatch plant in Tianjin, China. Cabot announced the beginning of construction in February 2011 with plans to invest approximately US$20 million for the plant, which is located inside its Tianjin facility, a joint venture with Shanghai Coking and Chemical Corporation, a subsidiary of Shanghai Huayi Group Company, Ltd. The site in Tianjin already supports the world’s largest rubber and specialty carbon black complex.
The masterbatch facility will have an annual nameplate capacity of approximately 45,000 metric tons and expansion capacity to 80,000 metric tons in the future. According to Cabot, the state-of-the-art plant includes the latest environmental and manufacturing technologies to ensure production of high-quality masterbatches.
“This world scale plant is a milestone for Cabot because it is the first fully integrated black masterbatch production plant with our carbon black production facilities,” said Patrick Prevost, Cabot president and chief executive officer.