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Snapshot
ExxonMobil Chemical has petrochemical manufacturing and/or marketing operations in more than 150 countries around the world. Its products include olefins, aromatics, fluids, synthetic rubber, polyethylene, polypropylene, oriented polypropylene packaging films, plasticizers, synthetic lubricant basestocks and additives for fuels and lubricants.
In the UK, ExxonMobil Chemical Limited is one of the country's top chemical companies in terms of turnover. The company employ nearly 800 people plus hundreds of contractors at their site in Fawley near Southampton, which is shared with the Esso refinery, and at their ethylene plant at Fife in Scotland. In addition, Advanced Elastomer Systems Limited (AES), another ExxonMobil subsidiary, employs around 100 employees and contractors at a manufacturing plant in Newport, South Wales. Exxon Chemical's UK Head Office, is in Fareham, Hampshire.
At Fawley, ExxonMobil Chemical produces over a million tonnes of chemical products every year and are the major European manufacturer of halobutyl rubber that is used in products such as tyre linings. Around 80 per cent of the chemical products produced at Fawley are exported by ship either to ExxonMobil Chemical plants in Europe for further processing or to third party customers all over the world.
The ethylene plant at Fife is one of Europe's largest and most modern ethylene plants. Officially opened in 1986 at Mossmorran, 25 miles north of Edinburgh, it was the first plant specifically designed to use natural gas liquids (NGL) from the North Sea as feedstock. The ethane feedstock is recovered and piped from the adjacent Shell/Esso NGL plant. The Fife ethylene plant has an annual capacity of 830,000 tonnes, around 50 per cent of which is shipped to Antwerp for further processing while the remainder is produced for Shell Chemical Limited.
The AES manufacturing plant in Newport has capacity to produce 50,000 tonnes of thermoplastic elastomers (TPEs) per annum. TPEs manufactured at the site are marketed under the trademark Santoprene. TPEs are products that perform like rubber but can be processed with the speed, efficiency and economy of thermoplastics. Around 50 per cent of TPE sales are to the automotive industry, but the versatile product is also used by the construction industry and for consumer goods such as flexible toothbrushes and kitchen utensils.
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Last updated 03/06/09
