Croda International Plc held a groundbreaking ceremony at its Chocques manufacturing site in northern France that the company says signals the start of a major capital investment.
The focus of the project is a new production facility that will increase capacity at the site by more than 20% when it becomes fully operational in early 2017. The extra volume will not only allow Croda to meet the ever increasing demand for some of its most renowned surfactants within the Tween, Brij and Myrj ranges, it will also significantly improve the flexibility of production across the site.
By investing further in one of its core technologies, Croda will increase support to European customers in a wide range of industries from personal care, crop care, and health care, to specialty lubricants, polymers, and applications in oil, gas and mining.
At the groundbreaking ceremony Steve Foots, CEO of Croda said: Its great to be here with other members of the Croda Executive Committee to mark the launch of the construction phase of this major investment at our Chocques site. This significant increase in production capacity is a strategic investment to ensure that the site can continue to play its role in supporting our global business and is part of our global capital investment plan for the Group. We hope to be supporting further projects here at Chocques to expand capabilities in the near future.
During this groundbreaking event, new utilities infrastructure at the site was also officially opened. This will see Chocques further improve its efficiency, reliability and sustainability performance; it already obtains more than 90% of its steam and electricity requirements from very low carbon sources.
Stuart Arnott, President of Operations at Croda said: We are continuously focused on improving existing facilities as well as investing in new capabilities across all of our manufacturing sites. This investment in onsite steam generation at Chocques will ensure that production remains highly efficient when the new Alkoxylation plant is commissioned.
Following a comprehensive strategic review it became clear that the Croda Group would require additional capacity to service the needs of our customers in all regions. We are also constructing a very large game-changing investment in North America that will see us be the first in our space to manufacture a full range of sustainable non-ionic bio-based surfactants
Having recently completed major expansions in North America and Singapore this significant investment at Chocques completes the picture. Altogether this is a strong demonstration of our commitment to our customers and to sustainability.
