BASF Delays Plan For China MDI facility

BASF will delay the start-up of its proposed methylene diphenyl diisocyanate (MDI) plant in Chongqing, in southwestern China. In 2007, BASF signed a memorandum of cooperation with state-owned firms and the Chongqing government to build a 400,000-metric-ton-per-year MDI plant in the Changshou chemical industrial park by 2010. Martin Brudermüller, a BASF board member, tells C&EN that the opening of the plant "has to be synchronized with market demand." He notes that Chinese demand for chemicals in the first quarter of 2009 was below what it had been a year earlier and that the pace of recovery is unclear.