Acrylonitrile capacity stood at 6.3 million tons in 2008, up 254,500 tons from last year. Of this nearly half was added in North America, with Ineos Nitriles (Innovere) and Lucite setting up respective 650,000 tons a year and 140,000 tons a year of production capacities. The rest of the capacity was set up in Asian region shared between China and South Korea. Thus, Asia now accounted for almost 49% of global acrylonitrile capacity with over 3 million tons of annual capacity. With another 250,000 tons per annum capacity under construction the total capacity in Asia would touch 3.2 million tons by end-2009. North America (mostly USA) has the second largest capacity followed by West Europe. North America accounting for 26% of global acrylonitrile capacity while West Europe (largely UK, Germany and Spain) with current capacity of 970,000 tons (accounting for 15% of global).
The acrylic fibers industry continued its downswing, dropping by 20% to 1.9 million tons in 2008. This resulted in a dramatic slump in world utilization rate to below 75% of nameplate capacity from almost 97% in 2005. The industry has suffered around the globe from flat to declining demand and further increased raw material prices. All Asian manufacturing countries suffered from double-digit declines, with the exception of India that managed to slightly grow by 3%. The output in West Europe was down 16% and the volume in Latin America declined by 5%. Top performing country was Egypt enjoying a double-digit production growth.
