Bayer MaterialScience closes TDI facility at New Martinsville
The Toluene Diisocyanate (TDI) facility at the Bayer MaterialScience plant in New Martinsville, which produces 110 million pounds of TDI annually, will be closed effective immediately. The 30 employees who will be affected by the closure will be reassigned to other jobs.
"This closing completed the restructuring and consolidation of Bayer's TDI business that we have outlined in the past," said Jim Newport, New Martinsville General Plant Manager. "TDI has been produced at New Martinsville since the mid-50s," Newport said, "and the Bayer employees who work at the TDI unit are among the best in the business. However, the economies of scale have been changing in the TDI marketplace, and Bayer is consolidating production to several world-scale plants, including its plant in Baytown, Texas."
A proportionate amount of by-product hydrochloric acid production at New Martinsville will cease as a result of the TDI closure. The New Martinsville facility will continue to produce other isocyanates and polyols, coatings raw materials and thermoplastic polyurethanes, Newport said. Isocyanates and polyols are combined to make flexible and rigid polyurethane foams, which are used in furniture, automotive, construction, appliance and sporting goods applications.
Bayer's TDI production has been consolidated into world-scale facilities in Baytown and Dormagen and Brunsbuettel, Germany. Another world-scale TDI plant is planned for Caojing, China, which is expected to come on stream in 2009.
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