German chemicals group BASF and US peer Dow Chemical will jointly build a propylene oxide plant at Antwerp in Belgium next year, BASF said.

The two companies had developed a cost-effective manufacturing process for the production of propylene oxide (PO) at BASF’s Verbund site in Antwerp, Belgium, said a BASF statement.
The plant, with an initial annual capacity of 300,000 tonnes, is expected to come on stream in 2008 and will serve a growing demand for PO derivatives, used in the production of polyurethane plastics, chemical intermediates, flame retardants and synthetic lubricants.
A BASF spokesman said financial details were not being disclosed.
The supply of the plant with hydrogen peroxide will be safeguarded through a joint venture with Belgian drugs and chemicals firm Solvay.
Both Dow Chemical and BASF are planning additional HPPO plants in the coming years, BASF said, citing a goal to start up a new HPPO plant at its Geismar site in Louisiana by 2009.
 “At the same time we are evaluating potential sites for a first HPPO plant in Asia, preferably to be built in our partnership with Dow,” Jean-Pierre Dhanis, president of BASF’s polyurethanes division, said in the statement.
 The so-called HPPO technology, based on the use of hydrogen peroxide, offers the advantage that the creation of by-products are avoided, leaving nothing but the end product propylene oxide and water at the end of the process.