DuPont starts up Kevlar facility

LSRUNQI

DuPont starts up Kevlar facility
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8 \  q$ r2 M: j9 K1 C- TFriday, October 7, 2011
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, z. W! W8 W, n1 ]; dWilmington, DE - DuPont announced the start up of its $500 million Cooper River Kevlar facility near Charleston, SC. The Cooper River Kevlar plant uses state-of-the-art technology that will allow DuPont to meet increased customer demand for advanced protective materials in emerging industries around the world by expanding its portfolio of science-based innovations and boosting productivity. Commercial supply will begin by the end of the year. Overall global production capacity for Kevlar will increase initially by 25 percent and is expected to grow by 40 percent, with planned productivity improvements and continued technology developments over the next two years. Along with a recent $50 million expansion at DuPont’s Spruance plant in Richmond, VA, Cooper River represents the largest single investment in Kevlar and the largest capacity increase since the fiber was introduced in 1965. DuPont also manufactures Kevlar in Richmond, VA; Maydown, Northern Ireland and at a DuPont joint venture, DuPont-Toray Company in Tokai, Japan. The Cooper River Kevlar plant expansion has created 135 jobs and was built over a period of three years using a construction workforce of up to 800.