How Your Furfuryl Line Got Down to One Origin
Monument Chemical said on October 6 that it is picking up THFA and 2-MeTHF as Minasolve stops making them in the United States. The release names no plant, so we found it: 3324 Chelsea Avenue, Memphis, the Penn A Kem site whose predecessor petitioned for the 1995 furfuryl alcohol duty order. Meanwhile 3,738.3 of the 3,739.4 tonnes that landed on that customs line this year came from Belgium.
Type pennakem.com into a browser and you get a 301 to minasolve.com, where the chemistry on offer is personal care ingredients.
Furfuryl alcohol is not on that page. Neither is furan, furfurylamine, THFA or 2-MeTHF.
On October 6 Monument Chemical published the reason, in a release about its own expansion rather than anyone's exit. The headline is that Monument is investing to expand global supply of THFA and 2-MeTHF, tetrahydrofurfuryl alcohol and 2-methyltetrahydrofuran.
The load is all in a subordinate clause. The expansion "is part of a new agreement with Minasolve as the company ceases U.S. production of these solvents."
Frédéric Marmousez, CEO of Minafin Group, is quoted on the transition. "As we sharpen our focus on other bio-based chemicals."
So a bio-based solvent line leaves the United States and the announcement runs on a stories page. No plant is named, no tonnage, no stop date, no financial terms. The only geography in the whole document is "Europe and the U.S."
"Which plant just stopped, and what else comes out of it?"
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