NatureWorks LLC, the world’s leading manufacturer of PLA pellets, in early February opened a new office in Thailand’s capital Bangkok to serve the Asia-Pacific region. The office also will act as an administrative center to direct operations at the company’s first manufacturing plant in Asia. Construction of the state-of-the-art facility, located in an industrial park some 70km north of the Thai capital, is anticipated to complete within this year. The new plant will supply the region’s growing markets with NatureWorks’ Ingeo-branded PLA pellets.
The company also announced a substantial capacity enhancement at its home base plant in Blair, Nebraska, United States. The first enhancement phase concerned an optimization in the chemistry of the lactide stream at increased capacity, enabling an increase in polymer production by 10%. Phase 2 involved upgrading the ability to push its Ingeo polymer through various unit operations in the plant. The previous installations proved to have mechanical limitations as higher production rates were pushed. The third phase of the project concerned “debottlenecking” at the production back-end, i.e., after pelletization.