PU China 2018: Hongbaoli mulls US plant to thwart trade war

Shanghai, China – Hongbaoli is contemplating investing in a US plant with 20-30kT/year polyether polyol capacity if the US imposes 25% tariffs on polyol imports from China.

Hongbaoli has 180kT/year rigid polyether polyol capacity and 15m m²/year high flame-retardant insulation panel capacity. An expansion project with 120kT/year propylene oxide capacity also came on stream earlier this year.

Last year, the US market accounted for over 10% of the company’s sales, sales manager Wu Yiming told UTECH-polyurethane.com.

In total, the company had sales of CNY 2bn ($318m).

‘We highly value the US market as it has higher gross margin and the demand is more stable,’ said Wu.

‘This is because clients have higher technical requests and couldn’t easily switch to a different supplier.’

Opening a new plant in other regions such as Southeast Asia would not be as practical. Wu said that this was because of supply chain problems.