By Tony Deligio

In order to support the company’s growing base of customers in China, ExxonMobil Chemical’s Santoprene business now sells a full portfolio of thermoplastic vulcanizates (TPV) in Renminbi, the Chinese currency. The supplier’s polyolefins, including Vistamaxx and Vistalon, as well as its Exact specialty elastomers. The company will still maintain its distribution network to meet the demands of smaller customers. The materials warehoused in China are supplied from ExxonMobil’s production sites in Baton Rouge, La.; Notre Dame de Gravenchon, France; Cologne, Germany; Newport, Wales; and Pensacola, FL.

Other recent Asia-Pacific investments for ExxonMobil include a specialty polymers laboratory in Bangalore, India and the Polymers Automotive Applications Center in Kawasaki, Japan. In addition, ExxonMobil announced it would build a second world-scale petrochemical complex in Singapore, including a 300,000-tons/yr specialty elastomers unit.

ExxonMobil’s TPOE and TPV news comes on the heels of last week’s announcement that compounder PolyOne (Cleveland, OH) has acquired specialty thermoplastic elastomers (TPE) supplier GLS Corp. (McHenry, IL). GLS began TPE manufacturing in Suzhou, China last year.