Huntsman considers building PU machinery factory

New Orleans, Louisiana – Huntsman is planning to start production of Tecnoelastomeri machinery in the US, Steve Burns, vice president Americas, of Huntsman’s polyurethane division said on the side lines of the CPI meeting on Wednesday.

‘We have to do something, we have to build something. We can do so much in Milan, but we are going to need the assets here,’ he said.

The decision was driven by ‘supply chain and registration challenges,’ he said, adding: ‘we are trying to put a capital plan together to make the same products here in North America that are made in Italy.’

The departure for Huntsman has not been considered lightly. Burns said: ‘We exhaustively searched and we don’t have any available asset within the Huntsman network,’ that could make precision polyurethane machinery of this type.

Burns agreed that this would see Huntsman enter a different business area with a different business model but said: ‘its attractive, we’ve done well with footwear, and TPUs.’

A location for the facility has yet to be decided but two possible places could be Ringwood, Illinois or Geismar, Louisiana. Production in Italy could also be expanded, he suggested.