In the past year, Dead Sea Bromine of the Israel Chemicals group has been preparing a strategic five year investment plan. The plan is intended, on the one hand, to consolidate DSB’s standing in the bromine compounds markets, and on the other hand to expand the company’s control of the crude bromine market.
The company will invest more than $110 million under this plan. It is about to submit the plan to the Investment Centre, in an effort to secure approved enterprise status. The plan mainly envisages the expansion of the existing plants and the establishment of new plants for the manufacture of bromine compounds, with a high economic added value.
A senior ICL source told "Globes" that the plan is designed, first and foremost, to provide a response to the expansion plans of DSB’s two principal competitors in the international crude bromine and bromine compounds market. These are the US manufacturers Great Lakes Chemical and Albemarle Inc., which have a 50% control of the world market. The bromine group holds 37% of the world market.
"Globes" has learned that the preparation of the investment plan was accelerated in recent weeks, after the Jordanian potash company APC decided to cancel the plan for setting up a bromine manufacturing plant jointly with Dead Sea Bromine, on the Jordanian shore of the Dead Sea, at an investment of $80 million. Production volume was a projected 35,000 tons. APC signed a similar agreement with Great Lakes.
World market demand for bromine and its derivatives, especially the more sophisticated ones, has increased in recent years. The electronics and computers market, especially in the Far East, is one of the main sectors posting a slow but steady increase in the demand for flame retardants, the principal raw material of which is bromine. In the past year, DSB management has reportedly signed a number of agreements for the supply of bromine and its products to various large US and other companies in the international bromine market.
Almost every year or two, the company increases its output of crude bromine. In 1995, output amounted to 150,000 tons per annum, and the company is planning, as part of its strategic plan, to increase this to 300,000 and later to upward of 350,000 tons.
Published by Israel's Business Arena July 28, 1998