Munich, Germany - The Linde Group has two new contracts for on-site supply of gases to Ningbo Iron & Steel Co. Ltd and Korean company Hanwha Chemical Corp. (HCC) in Ningbo in eastern China.
These contracts build on the deal Linde signed with Ningbo Wanhua Polyurethane Co. Ltd to supply gases to supplied from two air separation plants, each with a total capacity of 39,000 scmh (standard cubic metres per hour) pipeline, which Linde is currently building for Ningbo Wanhua at Daxie.
Ningbo Wanhua Polyurethane is one of China's fastest-growing polyurethane manufacturers.
Under this supply agreement, signed in December 2007, Linde Gas Ningbo will supply Ningbo Wanhua's polyurethane plants from 2010 with large volumes of oxygen and nitrogen. At more than Euro 100 million, this is Linde's biggest single investment to date in China.
Under the new agreements, Linde will build an additional air separation plant at the emerging Daxie island industrial site on the Yangtze delta, with an investment of around Euro 17 million.
The new plant will supply an extra 21,000 scmh of oxygen to the steelworks of Ningbo Steel in Ningbo Beilun district from the middle of 2009. Linde Gas Ningbo, a fully-owned subsidiary of The Linde Group, has been supplying the largest integrated producer of iron and steel in the region exclusively since 2007 with a total of 42,000 scmh of oxygen and 40,000 scmh of nitrogen from two air separation plants.
At Daxie, Hanwha Chemical is building a production facility for PVC (polyvinyl chloride) due to come on stream at the end of 2010.
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