Rubber plant

German specialty chemicals group Lanxess is set to make the biggest single investment in its history in Singapore.

A new chemical production site for synthetic rubber is to be built at the chemical park on Jurong Island at a cost of €400m.

From 2011, the site in Singapore will produce up to 100,000 tons of butyl rubber annually, making the plant the largest facility of its type in Asia.

Construction of the plant is due to begin in the first quarter of 2009. It should be completed by the end of 2010. Some 200 new jobs will initially be created.

The new chemical facility will produce butyl and halobutyl, synthetic rubbers that are used in the production of tyres.

'By setting up this new location in Singapore, Lanxess is responding to the significant growth in global demand for butyl rubber,' said Axel C.  Heitmann, Chairman of the Lanxess Board of Management.