Celanese: A Global Leading Chemical Company

By Jenny Du
On June 15th, 2006 CCR editors interviewed Mr. David Weidman,
president and CEO of Celanese Corporation in Beijing.

Support the Growth of the Chinese Market

Celanese, a global chemical company manufacturing in Europe,
North America and in Asia, has very strong growing position in
the Asian and Chinese markets. In 2005, 20% of its sales came
from Asia, which is up from 7% five years ago. Furthermore,
Celanese has target in Asian sales that will reach one third of
the world total by 2010.
   Celanese views China as a very important market and is excited
about the development of China in recent years. Celanese has been
selling their products in China for 30 years and involved in
China with setting joint ventures for 20 years. Celanese locates
manufactures in three places- Kunming of Yunnan province,
Nantong of Jiangsu province and Zhuhai of Guangdong province.
"We are building new manufactures in our plastic bases and
chemical bases", said Mr. David Weidman. It is released that the
strategy of Celanese is in China to continue to support the
growth of the market and globally to be the leading supplier to
their very important customers. Because many of their customers
are moving manufactures to China, Celanese is building their own
manufacturing complex in the fields of high-performance
products, engineering plastics and high-performance fibers.   
    Celanese announced on December 12th, 2005 that it would
build a 300 000 t/a world-scale vinyl acetate monomer (VAM) plant
in Nanjing, Jiangsu province. The plant is expected to start up
in late 2007 or early 2008. (CCR 2005, No. 36) "As the world’
s leading producer of VAM and other acetyl-based products, we
believe it is important to have a manufacturing presence in the
world’s fastest growing region to supply our customers with a
reliable, locally produced product," said David Weidman. "This
investment is consistent with our strategy to maintain our
leading position in the VAM market." He also stressed three
important criteria for selecting Nanjing as one of the major
bases. Firstly, Celanese gains support from the local government
and the local city in Nanjing. Secondly, Celanese achieves good
access to their key raw materials either through waterway or from
other suppliers. Finally, Celanese has very convenient access
to their customers for cooperation such as BASF, Sinopec, etc.
Besides Jiangsu province, Celanese is also considering another
location in China and there maybe more opportunity to the market
in the future, but he didn't give further announcement during
the interview.

Achieve Success through Unremitting Effort

Celanese has achieved much significance in the past 3 years. "We
are completely successful by making acquisitions in Europe and
North America and by making investments in Asia. In addition to
that, our company has completed a very important list in the New
York Stock Exchange. The last 3 years have also seen very good
improvement in business performance, both the sales and earnings
grow significantly," said Mr. David Weidman.
     Currently, Celanese has announced plans for 6
manufacturing plants for China, potentially an acetic anhydride
plant, a VAM (vinyl acetate monomer) plant, an emulsion plant,
a long fiber plant, a GUR plastics plant and an acetic acid plant,
most of which will be in Nanjing of Jiangsu province. "When they
are completed in 2009, they will have the potential to generate
US$1 billion of revenue for Celanese to increase the size of the
company by almost 20%", estimated by Mr. David Weidman. Many of
Celanese's businesses are investing for the development in Asia
and China. Celanese has invested in POM manufacturing in the
joint venture and they are looking at additional investment to
expand the capacity.

Develop Leading Technology to Expand Business

Celanese leads in acetic acid production technology in the world,
besides which the company also has leading technologies in vinyl
acetate manufactures, plastics and acetate fiber businesses.
"Celanese has very strong technology, over the time our
engineers and operators have developed many state-of-the-art
technologies and we are very delighted to bring them to China
to share with our customers for R&D and engineering processes.
Our investment in developing and holding technology is a central
part of our strategy," stated by Mr. David Weidman.
     When it comes to the acetic acid market in China, Mr. David
Weidman views it is a very good business in China with some good
growth and believes Celanese's customers are growing pretty well.
Although he expects the continuous growth over the next several
years, there will still be some concern. Celanese has very low
cost manufacturing technology for acetic acid and they do
protect the technology but not license it. At last, Mr. David
Weidman suggested that China has great future with the robust
and strong economy for years although there will be some worries
such as the challenge with the energy in chemical industry. And
he believes Chinese companies will become global companies.