Shin Etsu Chemical ups silicone production in US

Shin Etsu Chemical recently relocated its New Jersey facility from Totowa to Paramus, that’s the facility which most directly serves the cosmetics and personal care industry.

The move, completed in March, was part of a series of changes and “strategically [put the company] within thirty minutes of LaGuardia and Newark International Airports, [allowing] SESA to be closer to many of its strategic customers based in New York and New Jersey,”​ according to a media release about the company’s new cosmetics application laboratory.

At the time of that development, Janine Cherette, Shin-Etsu’s CAL team leader, told the press, “Speed is critical to our customers! We constantly strive to improve our efficiency, and this laboratory will enable Shin-Etsu Silicones to rapidly develop innovative products that meet the changing needs of our customers.”​

According to a company release, she also remarked that “having daily face-to-face contact with SESA’s R&D team, will allow [customers] to optimize synergies on projects−streamlining efficiencies and innovations.”​

The future​

Now, the company has announced plans to expand its Ohio facility by mid-year 2018. Shin Etsu has designated ¥2.4 bn to facility improvements.

“SESA’s Akron Plant is producing various silicone products that possess diversified forms and applications such as high consistency silicone rubber, liquid silicone rubber for adhesives and sealing materials, silicones for cosmetics and heat-dissipating silicones for applications in automobiles and electronics parts,”​ explains the company media release about this latest expansion.

The add-ons will “[expand] capacity for these silicone products and additionally…set up a new production facility for silicone emulsions.”  ​

The world​

Shin Etsu is well established as a silicone player in Japan and intends to replicate that success on a global scale. “With its research, production and sales capabilities coming together as one, Shin-Etsu Chemical has been accomplishing a great deal of fruitful results in Japan and will go ahead with employing the same approach globally,”​ affirms the company in the release about this latest expansion.

The “project in the US is part of this plan, and by making the maximum use of Shin-Etsu’s strengths in technology that have been nurtured over a long period of years in the field of silicon chemistry and the development of high-value-added products, Shin-Etsu will continue to strive to steadily capture the robustly growing demand for silicones in the US,” ​says the release.