Wacker Commissions New Silicone Elastomer Plant

Wacker’s new compounding facility near Kolkata. It provides rubbers for the Indian market. (Picture: PROCESS India)

The Munich-based chemical group Wacker has set up a compounding plant at its joint venture site Wacker Metroark Chemicals near Kolkata, at West Bengal, for manufacturing ready-to-use silicone elastomers.

Kolkata/India – The plant is designed for an annual production volume of several thousand MTs, and can be expanded in stages as demand requires. It is intended to supply India’s strongly growing economy with high-quality silicone compounds faster and more flexibly. Several million euros are planned for investment in this plant.

“India is one of our fastest-growing sales markets. The new Silmix facility is constructed according to Wacker standards, and will produce silicone compounds for the Indian electronics, automotive and medium and high-voltage insulator market as well as for other industries,” says Dr. Bernd Pachaly, Head of Wacker’s Engineering Silicones business unit.

During the start-up event in Kolkata, Pachaly’s Deputy Dr. Johann Schuster pointed out “By manufacturing such products locally, we can serve the market much more flexibly, and significantly reduce lead times while still delivering the expected high product quality.” The Silmix plant has been designed so that production capacity can be adjusted to meet current market requirements within a very short period of time.