Announcement

Huvis Indorama Advanced Materials (HIAM), founded in the US as a joint venture of Huvis and Indorama Ventures, began full-scale operation after two and a half years of preparations.

In 2018, Huvis signed an agreement to establish a 50:50 joint venture in the US with global chemical company Indorama Ventures for the production of low melting fiber (LMF) and has built production facilities. However, due to the severe spread of COVID-19 in the US, the facility construction was delayed and has been only recently completed and stabilized with full-scale commercial production finally beginning this March.

HIAM manufactured LMF are high-value products used mostly in interior/exterior materials for vehicles, sound absorbing materials, heat insulating materials, and filters. It is used as an adhesive in place of chemical bonds with properties that melt at low temperatures. The use of LMF in vehicles is expanding its application scope to meet consumer needs for driving comfort. In particular, demand is growing significantly in the electric vehicles market, where external noise blocking and weight reduction is important.

Huvis established a joint venture in the US to strengthen its market leadership in the LMF market, which is showing steady growth, and to effectively respond to US protectionism. With the Biden administration’s recent policy to boost the manufacturing business in the US and the United States–Mexico–Canada Agreement (USMCA), which took effect in July 2020 and strengthened the automaking supply chain in North America, the need for local production of LMF further increased, adding strategic significance to securing a production and sales base in the US.

“Huvis’s world-class LMF technology and state-of-the-art facilities combined with Indorama Ventures’ global business competencies will further strengthen our market leadership,” said Huvis CEO You Dong Shin. “Starting with the US, we will gradually expand the scope of sales to Canada and Mexico.”

HIAM was created based on the glocalization strategy of building production facilities where a market exists, and has an annual LMF production capacity of 60 thousand tons. It also has a great connection to downstream industries as it is in South Carolina where global automakers such as BMW and Honda are located.

“We joined forces with the world-renowned chemical fiber company Indorama Ventures and applied Huvis’s own technology and operation know-how to the Indorama Ventures factory in the US (formerly DuPont),” said Hyun-Suhp Shin, the strategic planning director who has been leading the negotiations and establishment of the joint venture. “HIAM has made a historical achievement beyond localization by reexporting Korea’s advanced chemical fiber technology to the US, the home of the modern chemical fiber industry, and receiving royalties.”

The global LMF market continues to grow at 7% annually, with Huvis taking the top spot. Last year, the global market size was about 1 million tons. It is in high demand from advanced markets such as the US and Europe as an eco-friendly material that replaces chemical bonds and reduces carbon dioxide use and energy consumption. The North American LMF market is estimated to be 170 thousand tons. 


▲ Workers check the process at the LMF production line in HIAM, South Carolina, USA.