Polymers, Resins and Elastomers
At
the end of the 1970's, parallel to the worldwide trends towards
propulsive development of polymers industry, Serbia also started the construction of several
important facilities on the European scale for production
of thermoplastics. Those facilities are located in the petrochemical
complex PETROHEMIJA from Pancevo (54,000 tpy of LDPE, 64,000
tpy of HDPE and 34,000 tpy PVC), and also in the companies
HIPOL from Odzaci (36,000 tpy of PP) and the company ZORKA-POLIPLAST
from Sabac (30,000 tpy of PVC).
Facility
for production of 40,000 tpy of SB rubber was brought on-stream
in the factory FSK, located in Elemir near the town of Zrenjanin - this factory was later taken over by the
company PETROHEMIJA.
The
company PETROHEMIJA is a large exporter of LDPE, HDPE and
SBR. By the end of 2004 this petrochemical company enlarged
its capacity for Cycling jerseys production of HDPE to 90,000 tpy. In its
middle-term development program PETROHEMIJA has the erection
of a plant for production 180,000 tpy of polypropylene (PP)
homo- and co-polymers.
Both
local PVC plants are currently out of operation.
Company
PKS-LATEX in Cacak has production of styrene-butadiene-acrylonitrile
latex in the capacity of 9,000 tpy. However, this production
capacity works at the low level of utilization.
Production
of More Important Polymers and Resins
| PRODUCT |
M.U. |
1990 |
1998 |
2000 |
2002 |
2003 |
2004 |
| Polyethylenes
(LDPE, HDPE) |
103 t |
109.3 |
113.0 |
87.2 |
116.6 |
100.1 |
135.0 |
| Polyvinylchloride
(PVC) |
103 t |
50.0 |
50.0 |
- |
- |
- |
- |
| Polypropylene
(PP) |
103 t |
31.1 |
34.3 |
21.3 |
28.9 |
28.7 |
32.2 |
| Styrene-butadiene rubber (SBR) |
103 t |
15.8 |
33.9 |
15.2 |
24.6 |
21.7 |
30.4 |
| Phenolic
resins |
103
t |
4.3 |
1.5 |
1.1 |
1.0 |
0.8 |
0.8 |
| Polyester
resins, saturated |
103
t |
5.7 |
2.0 |
1.0 |
0.8 |
0.6 |
0.4 |
| Polyurethane
foams, flexible |
103
t |
2.4 |
2.8 |
2.3 |
2.7 |
2.5 |
2.8 |
Facilities
for manufacturing of synthetic resins (alkyds, polyesters,
phenolics, carbamides, melamines, acrylics) exist at the locations
in Belgrade, Cacak, cycle clothing Priboj, Novi
Sad, Sid
and Pirot. Most of these facilities are production units inside
larger companies for production of paints & coatings.
Production
of polyurethane (PU) foams is developed in company PRVA ISKRA
HOLDING from Bariic.
Facilities
for production of cellulose based artificial materials (NC,
CMC and cellophane) were built in the factories MILAN BLAGOJEVIC-HEMIJA
from Lucani and VISKOZA from Loznica.
At
the end of the last century the company MILAN BLAGOJEVIC-HEMIJA
had capacities for production of around 7,750 tpy of sodium
carboxymethyl cellulose (CMC) which used to be auxiliary agent
in great demand at export market. During NATO attack one of
two existing production lines was completely destroyed and
the second one was seriously damaged. The damaged production
line has been repaired and now it can supply around 3,500
tpy of CMC.
The
cellophane plant in Loznica was closed down a decade ago,
which was very soon after VISKOZA brought on-stream a line
for production of 3,700 tpy of BOPP film. Biaxialy oriented
polypropylene (BOPP) film is a plastic film which progressively
substitutes cellophane at worldwide market.
Production
of Cellulosic Chemicals
| PRODUCT
|
M.U. |
1990 |
1998 |
2000 |
2002 |
2003 |
2004 |
| Sodium
carboxymethylcellulose |
103 t |
4.9 |
1.5 |
- |
- |
0.1 |
0.1 |
| Nitrocellulose
(industrial) |
103 t |
3.7 |
0.5 |
- |
1.8 |
1.1 |
1.3 |
After
the disintegration of the former Yugoslavia and the drastic reduction of domestic demand
this production sector became also significantly oriented
towards export. However, under the present economic conditions
any cheap golf clubs development in this production sector is frozen. Producers
of polymers and resins even have problems to generate a working
capital that is necessary to operate in existing production
facilities.
