Basell: 200 licenses sold worldwide

Sinopec selects Spherizone technology for a new 450 KT per year polypropylene plant in China, marking Basell’s 200th polyolefins process license.

Sinopec Tianjin Petrochemical Company has selected Basell’s Spherizone technology for a new 450 KT per year polypropylene plant to be built at Dagang, Tianjin in the People’s Republic of China. Start up is planned for 2009.

“Sinopec was one of the first licensors of Basell’s Spheripol process in the 1980s, and we are pleased that two decades later Sinopec has again selected our newest and most advanced polypropylene technology, representing our 200th polyolefins process license,” said Just Jansz, president of Basell’s Technology Business. “Sinopec’s preference for new, state-of-the-art technologies confirms our view that the Spherizone process enables users to expand their businesses and capture additional value from the market today and long into the future.”

Jansz added: “Of the 200 Basell process licenses sold, more than 100 have been polypropylene technology licenses.”

The Tianjin plant will be the eighth to be built using Spherizone technology. About 2.5 million tons of capacity has already been licensed, including three new Spherizone process licenses in the past two months.

Spherizone technology is an advanced manufacturing process for the production of polypropylene that uses a unique, state-of-the-art, multi-zone circulating reactor system. Spherizone process plants can produce the full range of polypropylene grades, as well as new families of propylene-based polymers.

Basell is a leading licensor of polypropylene and polyethylene technologies. The 200 polyolefin process licenses granted by Basell are twice that of any other polyolefin technology licensor. During the past 20 years, Basell technologies have been used in about half of all new polypropylene projects worldwide.

Basell’s complete portfolio of licensed technologies is comprised of:
• Spheripol – polypropylene technology for the production of homopolymer, random and heterophasic copolymers

• Spherizone – latest generation polypropylene technology based on new multi-zone reactor technology

• Spherilene – swing gas phase process for the production of LLDPE, MDPE and HDPE

• Hostalen - low-pressure slurry process for the production of bi-modal HDPE

• Lupotech T – high pressure tubular reactor process for the production of LDPE and EVA copolymers

• Metocene - technology for production of specialty polypropylene products based on proprietary single-site catalyst systems Basell also produces and commercialises advanced catalyst systems which are sold under the Avant trade name.