SKC Ready for Foray into Indian Polyurethane Market with Mitsui Chemicals

MCNS, a polyurethane joint venture between Korea’s SKC and Japan's Mitsui Chemicals, will make a foray into the Indian polyurethane market. MCNS held a “system house” completion ceremony at Three-City Industrial Complex in Chittoor District, Andhra Pradesh, India on August 8.

A system house refers to a base for producing a customized polyurethane raw material (system polyol) by adding additives to materials such as polyol, isocyanate and so on. MCNS decided to advance into the Indian polyurethane market with big growth potential in February of last year, and began to build the system house in March of the same year. Its annual output is around 15,000 tons.

India is the world's fifth largest producer of cars whose production consumes a lot of polyurethane. The nation produces approximately 4.7 million units per year. Polyurethane goes into heat insulation materials for refrigerators as well. India manufactures about nine million units of refrigerators per year.

Andhra Pradesh State is close to the Chennai region where many Korean and Japanese automobile and home appliance manufacturers are located. Korean and Japanese manufacturers account for 70% of automobile production and 50% of refrigerator production in India. MCNS will supply high quality products to Korean and Japanese corporate customers first and expand supply to Indian companies in the future.

MCNS is a fifty-fifty polyurethane joint venture between SKC and Mitsui Chemicals established in July 2015. The company is operating 17 production bases in 10 countries around the world, with an annual output of 750,000 tons and annual sales of 1.2 trillion won.