China's Highsun and BASF Plan to Form Polyamide 6 Joint Venture in Europe

en.Wedoany.com Reported - On October 19, China's Highsun Group and Germany's BASF signed a non-binding memorandum of understanding to integrate their respective polyamide 6 and related upstream and downstream businesses in Europe and form a joint venture with each holding a 50% stake. The two parties will also assess whether to include their global extrusion businesses outside North America in the joint venture scope; downstream engineering plastics businesses are not part of this assessment.

Under the cooperation arrangement, both parties have separately established project teams to carry out the assessment of the proposed business integration. BASF has polyamide and precursor production facilities in Ludwigshafen, Germany; Antwerp, Belgium; Caojing, Shanghai, China; and Freeport, United States. This assessment targets the businesses related to the two parties' European polyamide 6 value chain, and the specific production units and asset scope to be ultimately included in the joint venture have not yet been determined.

Highsun Group is headquartered in Fuzhou, Fujian, China, with businesses covering basic chemical raw materials, chemical fibers and advanced new materials. It has 31 manufacturing centers in China and Europe, forming an industrial chain encompassing caprolactam, polyamide and downstream materials. Chen Zhong, President of Highsun Group, stated that the two parties will explore cooperation opportunities in polyamide 6 and its precursor businesses.

Markus Kamieth, Chairman of the Board of Executive Directors of BASF Group, stated that the proposed cooperation will focus on assessing integration plans for the two parties' production assets, technologies and commercial resources to improve plant utilization rates and reduce operating costs. The project teams of both parties will continue to advance the assessment of the potential joint venture plan.