FACT restarts Caprolactam plant

19 Feb '09

2 min read

The Caprolactam plant of Fertilisers and Chemicals Travancore Limited (FACT), which has been closed down for six months, is being restarted. Production in this plant was stopped following unprecedented fall in the demand for Caprolactam in the domestic as well as global market. The fall out of the economic recession still worsened the situation during the last months of 2008, consequent upon which most of the Caprolactam consumers (mainly nylon producing companies) either closed their production units or curtailed capacity utilisation.

This drastically affected the caprolactam market with the result that global capacity utilisation of Caprolactam plants fell to 56%. The price of Caprolactam, which hovered around US$ 2400 per tonne during September 2008, collapsed heavily and is now settled around US$1150.

FACT has been closely watching the global scenario in the Caprolactam market with a view to positively utilise any emerging trends. Since the beginning of 2009, market sentiments have slightly improved and some of the Caprolactam consumers have given positive signals also. Taking a cue from that FACT exhausted the pending stock of about 850 tonnes of Caprolactam.

Along with the encouraging trends from the export market, some of our domestic customers also have reported increase in their capacity utilisation and we are hopeful of getting orders from them during the coming months, which prompted us to resume production in our Caprolactam unit.

Though production of Caprolactam was suspended for a few months, the plant has been maintained in full health with the required maintenance and repair works.

With resumption of production in Caprolactam plant, all the production plants of FACT are now in operation.

Fertilisers and Chemicals Travancore Limited

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