Oct 17 2008
Cabot Corporation today broke ground on its new world-class fumed silica manufacturing facility located in Tianjin, China. The facility is a project of Cabot Bluestar Chemical (Tianjin) Co., Ltd, a joint venture between Cabot Corporation's wholly owned subsidiary, Cabot (China) Limited, and China National Bluestar (Group) Corporation, a part of the China National Chemical Group. The joint venture will invest approximately $40 million to build Cabot's next world-class fumed silica facility with a manufacturing capacity of approximately 7000 metric tons per year, to be commissioned in mid 2010.
Cabot's President and CEO, Mr. Patrick Prevost, said "The partnership between Cabot and the Bluestar Group has been forged over many years and today we continue to build on that excellent relationship with the addition of this fumed silica manufacturing facility in Tianjin. The support of the government of China, the Tanggu District Government, Tianjin Municipal Government and the Tianjin Harbor Industrial Park have been invaluable to the continuation of Cabot's manufacturing development in China. We are highly committed to the Chinese market and this joint venture will be our second manufacturing facility in the Tianjin area. We are proud of both our carbon black and fumed silica operations in China and working together with the highly skilled local workforce and with the continued support of local officials, we are committed to supplying high quality fumed silica products from this state-of-the-art facility."
At the groundbreaking ceremony, attended by Mr. Sean Keohane, Vice President and General Manager, Performance Segment and Mr. Xinsheng Zhang, President of Cabot (China) Limited, Mr. Zhang said, "With the increasing demand in China and throughout the Asia Pacific region, this new fumed silica capacity will allow us to serve as a reliable source of high quality material for the Bluestar Group as they grow their silicones business, and to serve our other customers in the region as well."
Mr. Ren Jian Xin, founder of China National Bluestar Group and President of its parent company ChemChina, said "We are pleased to celebrate the groundbreaking of this new facility and the deepening of our relationship with Cabot. This new facility, which will be built in close cooperation between Cabot and Bluestar, will be state-of-the-art for fumed silica production and will be a great help to the growth of the Chinese silicone industry."