Perstorp has officially inaugurated its ISCC Plus-certified Penta chemicals plant in at Sayakha in Gujarat state, India. Covering 115,000 m2 and employing 120, this will add 40,000 tonnes/year of pentaerythritol and 26,000 tonnes/year of calcium formate, while reducing lead times in Asia by about 50%. The product mix will include the renewable grade Voxtar, which is based on a traceable mass-balance concept and is chemically identical to Penta, which Perstorp already produces in Sweden, Germany and the US.

Swedish chemical company Perstorp has added new corporate sustainability targets for water and waste to its sustainability strategy. These comprise 30% absolute reductions of freshwater consumption and of both hazardous waste and non-hazardous waste directed to disposal by 2030 from a 2019 baseline.

Malaysian petrochemicals giant Petronas Chemical Group (PCG) has agreed to acquire Perstorp from its private equity owner, Financière Forêt. The €1.54 billion cash acquisition gives Perstorp an enterprise value of €2.3 billion. It should close in 2H 2022, subject to regulatory and shareholder approvals.

Perstorp plans to roughly double its carboxylic acids capacity by 2024, by adding a second 70,000 tonnes/year facility at its main site in Stenungsund, Sweden. Like the original unit, this will produce acids from C3 to C9 chemistry and will be fully integrated into the company’s oxo production platform.

Under the newly announced Project AIR, Perstorp plans to build a first-of-its-kind, commercial-scale carbon capture and utilisation (CCU) unit to produce sustainable methanol via a combined CCU and gasification process at its site in Stenungsund, Sweden (pictured). Depending on securing grants to finance it, the aim is start producing in 2025.