US group Lubrizol to make medical tubing in JV with Polyhose, has no plans to buy out IOC’s stakes in JV
Global specialty chemicals major the US-based $6.5 billion Lubrizol Corporation will be forming a joint venture with the Chennai-based Polyhose India for manufacturing medical tubing, said a top group official.
She also said Lubrizol is happy with its automotive lubricant additive joint venture Lubrizol India Private Ltd with Indian Oil Corporation Ltd and has no plans to buy out the latter’s remaining stakes.
“We are strengthening our relationship with Polyhose. We will form a joint venture with Polyhose for the medical tubing business. We are working out the joint venture details,” Rebecca Liebert, President and CEO of Lubrizol Corporation said.
The two companies inked a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) in the presence of Tamil Nadu’s Minister for Industries, T.R.B. Rajaa, and other officials.
“This collaboration, with an investment of around Rs.200 crore, will produce high-quality medical tubing used in critical applications such as neurovascular and cardiovascular treatments, including intravenous catheters, hemodialysis tubes, central venous catheters, ureteral stents, brain stimulation and much more,” Rajaa said on his X.com page.
According to Liebert, the products made by the proposed joint venture plant will be primarily for the Indian market as the group believes in the philosophy of `local (manufacture) for local (market)’.
Adding further Bhavana Bindra, Lubrizol’s Managing Director India, Middle East and Africa said, a new 8,000 sq.ft clean room facility will be built for the purpose. The construction will start in 2025 and the facility will start production in 2026.
Bindra said the decision on the plant location in Chennai has yet to be made.
Medical tubing will be produced with Lubrizol’s advanced medical-grade thermoplastic polyurethane (TPU) and other thermoplastic polymers. These polymers offer biocompatibility and high performance while ensuring patient comfort. The new manufacturing facility will be ISO 13485 compliant, ensuring safe, high-quality medical tubing, Lubrizol said.
“Our ongoing collaboration with Lubrizol over the past seven years has been a testament to this commitment, and today, we are excited to take this partnership to the next level,” said Shabbir Y J, Managing Director, Polyhose India.
The 96-year-old American group has been present in India for over 60 years starting with the joint venture with IOC.
“We are happy with the joint venture with IOC. There is no plan to buy out IOC’s stake (26%) in the joint venture,” Liebert said.
Lubrizol India was an equal joint venture between IOC and Lubrizol. In 2017 the Indian government gave the permission to sell 24% stakes to Lubrizol Corporation.
Be that as it may, for Lubrizol Corporation, the investment in the medical tubing joint venture will be over and above the $350 million investment in India that was earlier announced.
The American group Lubrizol opened a Global Capability Centre (GCC) in Pune this year and announced the purchase of a 120-acre plot of land in Aurangabad to construct Lubrizol’s largest manufacturing facility in India and the second largest globally to support the region’s growing transportation and industrial markets.
Just a year ago, Lubrizol broke ground in the first phase of a 100,000 metric-ton Chlorinated Polyvinyl Chloride (CPVC) resin plant in Vilayat, Gujarat, India, the largest single-site capacity for CPVC resin production globally.
This project is in response to rising CPVC demand for piping applications and clean drinking water in India, as well as neighboring countries. In addition, Lubrizol is doubling its CPVC compound manufacturing capacity at its Dahej, Gujarat, site to meet growing needs in the piping sector, the company said.
(Venkatachari Jagannathan can be reached at venkatacharijagannathan@gmail.com)
