Orion is to spend €12.8 million to further develop and demonstrate a climate-neutral process for producing carbon black from renewable sources. Half of the total is being funded by the decarbonisation programme of Germany’s Federal Ministry of Economic Affairs and Climate Action, supported by the EU’s NextGenerationEU fund.

Orion Engineered Carbons has begun construction of its second plant in China for speciality and high-performance carbon black at Huaibei in Anhui province. This complements an existing plant in Qingdao, which opened in 1994, and another in South Korea.

The new plant is expected to be completed late next year and to begin operating in 2023. It will have 65,000-70,000 tonnes/year of capacity. Orion will equip the plant to convert its waste heat to steam for sale to the local industrial park.

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.