Explosions, fire at Nippon Shokubai’s Himeji SAP plant could lead to shortage of diapers

Explosions and a fire at Nippon Shokubai’s superabsorbent polymers (SAP) manufacturing facility at Himeji, near Osaka, on 29 September 2012 killed a firefighter and injured 36 other people, five seriously. Nippon Shokubai is the world’s leading producer of SAP and the Himeji plant, with capacity for 320,000 m.t./year of SAP, accounts for about 16% of global capacity, says Jim Glauser, analyst with IHS Chemical. SAP demand is expected to grow 5.6%/year in 2010-15, Glauser adds. The incident may lead to shortages of diapers, made from SAP, analysts say. Nippon...

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