Shokubai, Sumitomo complete projects

Nippon Shokubai completed the construction of two facilities: one to produce superabsorbent polymers and the other to produce the key ingredient acrylic acid. Built at a cost of $400 million, both plants at the firm’s site in Antwerp, Belgium, have an annual production capacity of 100,000 metric tons. Separately, Sumitomo Chemical finished building a 100,000-metric-ton methionine plant at its site in Ehime on the southeast island of Shikoku in Japan. The plant brings Sumitomo’s total production capacity for the poultry feed additive to 250,000 metric tons annually.