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    Categories: Chemicals and materials

Lanxess plans to continue operations at the Naugatuck facility

Lanxess, the German chemical company announced that it plans to remain in its facility located at the Uniroyal site, apparently for an extended period. For the record, the Technical Center (also called the Naugatuck Research Center) at the Uniroyal site consists of two buildings, 12 Spencer Street and 400 Elm Street. The center houses the firm’s North American R&D division that focuses on flame retardants, urethanes and lubricant additives. As per reliable sources, Lanxess serves the military, consumer and industrial markets with the support of 60 engineers and scientists in Naugatuck who work on research and development operations for the company’s flame retardants and lubricant businesses. Incidentally, Lanxess had taken over these sites when the company purchased Chemtura, one of world’s leading suppliers of lubricant additives and flame retardant on April 21, 2017 for $2.1 billion. However according to reports, Lanxess announced that it will be shutting down an earlier Chemtura facility at 199 Benson Road in Middlebury as its operations will be moved to a smaller site at 2 Armstrong Road in Shelton along with its 130 employees by Sept 4. Lisa Goldstone, Lanxess spokeswoman said that this decision was made on account of the Middlebury location being redundant, leased and non- profitable. She further states that the chemical company has anointed North America as a growth market and has decided to invest $500 million on the continent in their recent board meeting. Apparently, Lanxess believes an increase demand from automobile and technology industries will raise their production for flame retardants and lubricant additives. David Sikora, head of polymer additives technology said that in a bid to make cars more fuel-efficient, industries will use more plastic and fewer metal components in their cars, which in addition will require more flame retardants. He also mentioned that the company will also benefit from the demand for high end consumer products like smartphones and computers.
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