Cabot has announced plans for a new technology centre in Münster, Germany, which will focus on technical collaboration with customers on its battery material product lines for electric vehicles (EVs). This is due to begin operations by April 2023, with a planned expansion to be completed in 2024.
Cabot plans to invest about $75-90 million to add 15,000 tonnes/year of conductive carbon additives (CCA) capacity at its site in Pampa, Texas. This is part of planned investment programme in CCAs of about $200 million in the US over the next five years that will use the grants, loans and tax incentives on offer from the federal government.
Cabot has agreed to sell its Purification Solutions business, which makes activated carbon for a wide range of applications, to private equity firm One Equity Partners. President and CEO Sean Keohane said that this “will allow us to focus resources on our core business segments and invest in areas where we see strong future growth and innovation potential for Cabot, such as battery materials”.
The Chinese subsidiary of Boston-based speciality chemicals and materials firm Cabot has agreed to acquire Shenzhen Sanshun Nano New Materials (SUSN) for about $115 million. The deal expected to close in Q2 of fiscal 2020.
SUSN is claimed to be the world’s second largest producer of carbon nanotubes (CNTs) and commissioned a new plant in China in November 2018 with enough capacity to support growth over the next several years. It will henceforth be part of Cabot’s Performance Chemicals segment.
Cabot has broken ground on its carbon black capacity expansion project in Cilegon, Indonesia. This phase of the project will add approximately 80,000 tonnes/year of capacity for the regional market, where demand is growing by 4-5%/year. It is expected to be completed in 2021.
This is part of global capacity expansion and debottlenecking project that Cabot announced in May 2018 to increase capacity by 300,000 tonnes/year. The company said that it “has made significant progress” towards this target.
