Chinese additives maker Kangtai Lubricant Additives Co. started construction in June on a 50,000 metric tons per year additive manufacturing plant in Jinzhou city, Liaoning province, where the company is based.
The facility, which will cost about ¥251 million (U.S. $35.5 million), is scheduled to be completed in two years. It will have capacity to produce 10,000 t/y of phenates, 20,000 t/y of salicylate and 20,000 t/y of zinc dialkyldithiophosphates. Phenates and salicylates are major classes of detergents, while ZDDPs protect against wear and corrosion.
In a statement, Kangtai Chairman Han Qian said the company has worked on developing high quality additives that can be cost-competitive alternatives to those currently supplied by multinational companies.
Kangtai’s current production capacity for additives, mostly individual chemical components, is 90,000 t/y. Its gross profits fell 0.57% year on year in 2019, according to the company.
The start of Kangtai’s project came five months after United Kingdom-based Infineum, one of the industry’s four main suppliers of lube additive packages, signed a letter of intent to expand its additive factory in Zhangjiagang, Jiangsu province. The company has not said when construction will begin nor when the plant will open.
Kangtai’s supplier and rival – Henan province-based Richful Lube Additive Co. – also plans to boost its additive production capacity. In a prospectus filed in March, the company said it expects to raise ¥340 million to invest in a facility with the capacity to produce 60,000 t/y of additive components and 12,800 t/y of additive packages. The company is waiting for an initial public offering approval to get listed on the Shenzhen Stock Exchange’s startup board. Richful last year sold 20% of its shares to its major client, Sinopec, for ¥340 million.