OCI Materials, Korean manufacturer of special material gases, is going to establish a joint venture with its local partner in China to produce and sell fluorinated acid (anhydrous hydrofluoric acid: AHF) which is used as the raw material of nitrogen trifluoride, for the purpose of securing the supply capacity and stable pricing of AHF.

The joint venture partner is Yingpeng Chemical (headquartered in Yongkang, Zhejiang Province), who invests about 15 million dollars in a new AHF plant for production of 20,000 tons per year to be constructed in the Fluorine Chemistry Industrial Complex located at Fuxin, Liaoning Province. The commercial production of the plant is scheduled to start in April 2012. Both parties signed the joint venture agreement in March 2011.

Yingpeng Chemical is known as the largest producer of AHF in East Asia with a capacity of 120,000 tons per year, which amounts to 2 million tons per year in terms of fluorspar output as the raw material of fluorinated acid. The local partner, consisting of 14 member companies having 1,500 employees in the group, also produces sulfuric acid as well as refrigerant gases of R22 and HFC-152a .

In the latter half of 2011 OCI Materials already completed the additional production of 1,000 tons per year of nitrogen trifluoride (NF3) in Yeongju, Korea, and is also planning to build up a new plant to produce 1,000 tons per year in Jiangsu Province at the beginning of 2012. With an additional increase of 2,000 tons per year in Yeongju by 2013, the company will attain an expanded production up to 9,500 tons per year in total. Such circumstances are reinforcing need of a stable supply of AHF accordingly.

Particularly in China where the construction of a new 1,000 tons a year plant is underway, the NF3 market will keep growing in such fields as LCD, semiconductor and solar battery from now on. Furthermore, the restricted import of fluorspar by the government has caused skyrocketing of the price of fluorspar. In tandem with this, it has caused a trend to raise the price of AHF. It seems now that the company has aimed to build up an integrated production system from AHF of raw material to NF3, taking such circumstances into account.