Saltigo, a wholly owned subsidiary of specialty chemicals group LANXESS, is significantly expanding production at its Leverkusen site. This is being made possible by a cooperation agreement that is so far unique for the Group. Syngenta, a leading manufacturer of crop protection agents and long-standing customer of Saltigo, is investing some EUR 50 million in expanding several Saltigo facilities in Leverkusen to significantly enhance its capacity for synthesizing active ingredients for crop protection agents. Saltigo supplies the active ingredients and intermediates produced at these facilities exclusively to Syngenta and is one of the Swiss group’s strategic partners throughout the world.

“Today is a great day for our fine chemicals division,” said Axel C. Heitmann, Chairman of the Board of Management of LANXESS AG, during the official launch of the project. “This long-term cooperation underlines the enormous confidence Syngenta has in Saltigo’s expertise and technology as a specialist in synthesis chemistry. The expansion in capacity will also give a major boost to Leverkusen’s long-term future as a location for high-tech chemistry.” 

“Reliability and a relationship built on trust are of great importance for both sides. We need suppliers we can rely on who can supply products of consistently high quality and respond flexibly to our requirements,” said John Ramsay, Syngenta’s Chief Financial Officer, at the event in Leverkusen. “The substantial investment here at the site shows a clear commitment to our collaboration, which already extends back more than 15 years.” 

A total of three facilities for producing active ingredients and intermediates used in agriculture are being expanded. These products are manufactured using complex, multi-stage synthesis processes. The building projects, which essentially comprise the installation of new synthesis reactors, are currently being carried out while the existing systems continue to work at full capacity and are due to be completed at the end of the year. Syngenta’s investment and further enhancement of the existing manufacturing process at Saltigo will enable a significant boost in capacity. The main reasons for the increased demand for active ingredients used in crop protection are the constant increase in the world population and the changing food patterns in Asia in particular. The Earth will be home to more than nine billion people by 2050, over two billion more than today. This calls for growth in productivity of cultivated land amid a shortage of arable land. 

Saltigo is one of the leading suppliers in the synthesis sector and offers tailor-made end-to-end solutions for customers from the crop protection and pharmaceutical sectors as well as for various non-life science industries. The compounds that Saltigo manufactures for its customers form the basis of numerous pharmaceutical and agro active ingredients, polymers and specialty chemicals that also play a key role in everyday life. In crop protection, this includes fungicides, herbicides and insecticides. A subsidiary of the LANXESS Group, Saltigo is part of the Advanced Intermediates segment, which generated sales of EUR 1,104 million in fiscal 2009. The company, headquartered in Langenfeld and with production facilities in Leverkusen and Dormagen, employs around 1,350 people in Germany.