WARSAW: Poland’s Grupa Azoty decided to invest around $450m to build Europe’s biggest propylene plant with a capacity of producing 400,000 tons of propylene a year and will begin production in 2019. This is expected to increase the company’s annual revenue by 20 per cent to 12bn zloty.
The investment, the largest in the company’s history, will create Europe’s biggest production plant for propylene, a critical chemical in the production of plastics and solvents, used in a range of products including car parts, carpets and toys.
Grupa Azoty is one of only a handful of Polish business giants that has managed to turn national dominance into international clout, amid long-overdue efforts by the country’s government to encourage overseas expansion and investment in new business areas among its largest corporates.
Paweł Jarczewski, the company’s chief executive, said the investment was of “historical magnitude”.
“It opens up a whole new sphere for future development for the company,” he told the Financial Times. “This investment confirms Grupa Azoty’s position as . . . Europe’s emerging player on the chemical market.”Europe is estimated to have a deficit of about 1,000 tonnes of propylene per year. The plant, to be built in Police on Poland’s northern Baltic coast, will export 60 per cent of its production, the company said.
