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Two Chinese newcomers make the ranking: TongKun Group at 48 and Hengyi Petrochemical at 50. Both are polyester producers that make their own raw materials. Hengyi also has a large, integrated nylon 6 business. Both companies join similar Chinese firms, like Hengli Petrochemical and Rongsheng Petrochemical. All these companies have been building massive complexes for aromatics and derivatives, in many cases swamping entire segments of the chemical industry—such as purified terephthalic acid—with new capacity that is well beyond the scale of players outside China.

The polyurethane specialist Covestro unveiled a plan late last year to cut up to 1,700 jobs—about 10% of its workforce—by the end of 2023. Most of the cuts will be in Germany. At the same time, the company is resuscitating a plan to build a world-scale methylene diphenyl diisocyanate plant by 2026. While the previous plan pinpointed Texas as the site of the complex, Covestro now says it may build it in either the US or China. The company is also increasing capacity for another polyurethane raw material, toluene diisocyanate, in Dormagen, Germany. And with the biotechnology firm Genomatica, Covestro plans to make biobased hexamethylenediamine, used in the manufacture of polyurethanes and nylon 6,6.

A Rongsheng Petrochemical subsidiary, Zhejiang Petroleum & Chemical, started up the second phase of its massive refining and petrochemical complex in Zhejiang, China, in 2021. With capacity now doubled, the facility can process 40 million metric tons (t) of oil per year. The facility has a large petrochemical output: up to 6.6 million t of aromatics and 1.4 million t of ethylene per year. The expansion allowed the company to start making specialized polymers, such as acrylonitrile-butadiene-styrene and polycarbonate.

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Being a leading manufacturer of natural ingredients and nutrition supplements in China, HSF focuses on the R&D, production, and marketing of Natural Vitamin E and Phytosterol, Ferulic acid and Gamma Oryzanol throughout the worldwide market, with its headquarter located in the city of Xi"an, Shaanxi province, southwest China.