Solid figures for Antwerp

18.01.16. Liquid bulk volumes through Port of Antwerp finished 2015 up 6.1 percent to 66.7 million tonnes.
The volume of oil derivatives rose by 4 percent to just under 48 million tonnes. Chemicals experienced particularly strong growth, jumping by 18.2 percent to 13.4 million tonnes, while crude oil volume was down slightly, ending the year with 4.8 million tonnes (down 3.4 percent).
During the past year not only did work go ahead on investments that had already been planned by among others Total (Optara), ExxonMobil (Antwerup EPC2) and Evonik (expansion of the butadiene and MTBE plants), but also new investments were announced. Invoyn is planning a major investment in a large-scale potassium hydroxide plant that is due to enter production in 2017, while the Japanese company Nippon Shokubai began work several months ago on an investment that will give its Antwerp plant more capacity for production of super-absorbent polymers and acetic acid by 2018.