Nouryon and Atul successfully started production at Anaven, a new joint venture in Gujarat, India, that will help meet the rapidly growing demand in India’s agricultural, personal care and pharmaceutical markets.
Anaven is India’s largest MCA production site, with a current capacity of 32,000 tonnes of MCA per year. There is a possibility of rapid expansion of up to 60,000 tonnes per year in the near term.
MCA is used as an essential raw material for a variety of products, such as adhesives, pharmaceuticals, and crop protection chemicals. The chemical industry company, Atul Ltd consumes a portion of the MCA directly in its own production of crop protection chemicals.
Anaven plant is also the only zero-liquid discharge MCA production site in the world i.e. zero wastewater exits in the plant. This stands as a critical factor in India where water is scarce.
Rob Vancko, Vice President of Construction at Nouryon and Chairman of Anaven, said: “Through this partnership with Atul, we can leverage Nouryon’s global leadership in MCA in order to meet the fast-growing demand from customers across multiple markets in India, while also continuing to drive innovation and sustainability in the region.”
Sunil Lalbhai, Chairman and Managing Director of Atul said: “Thanks to our partnership, we can apply Nouryon’s state-of-the art technology in the new plant while creating forward and backward integration with our bulk and agri-chemicals businesses. The Anaven plant will ensure a reliable supply of a key raw material for the Indian market, giving a growing number of farmers, doctors and households better access to daily essentials.”
Nouryon has applied its expertise to build a plant that uses eco-friendly hydrogenation technology and employs the latest sustainability innovations for low energy consumption.
It has monochloroacetic acid (MCA) plants in the Netherlands, China & Japan, and also, operates an organic peroxide along with metal alkyls production site in Mahad (Maharashtra).
Atul Ltd is a chemical company that manufactures about 900 products (such as p-Cresol and derivatives, resorcinol & derivatives, vat dyes, sulphur dyes, herbicides, fungicides, tissue-cultured date palms, active pharma ingredients & intermediates, epoxy resins, reactive diluents, etc) along with 400 formulations and also, owns 140 brands.