Rainbow to build annual 25,000-ton glyphosate production plant

Chinese agrochemical company Rainbow recently announced a plan to change the annual 20,000-ton 2,4-D, 2,000-ton Clethodim and 500-ton Haloxytop-R-mithyl project into an annual 25,000-ton Glyphosate Continuous Process Upgrading Project in its announcement. 

After the change of the publicly-funded project, the investment is RMB572 million, an increase of RMB233 million over the initially planned amount to be raised through public funds.

Glyphosate is the world’s largest herbicide for application and has remained very popular with continuous price increases since the beginning of 2021 due to the imbalance between supply and demand and the rise in prices of upstream raw materials. 

The Glyphosate series has been one of Rainbow’s dominant product series. However, the company’s Glyphosate production line is shut down temporarily due to cost and production process issues, which forces the company to outsource Glyphosate technical. To improve the stability of the supply of Glyphosate technical and prompt delivery of the company’s products to customers, the company must ensure a stable supply of Glyphosate at a low cost.

Rainbow has been trying to build a full-scale continuous Glyphosate production plant to improve product yield by increasing production and reducing waste discharge by applying advanced technology. 

The company’s glycine-based glyphosate process has shown satisfactory results in controlling energy consumption, equipment stability, work safety and environmental regulatory compliances. Moreover, unlike the IDA glyphosate process, which is subject to the availability of the raw material PMIDA, the glycine-based glyphosate process mainly uses basic chemical raw materials readily available on the market.

The project comes with a total investment of RMB572.12 million, including facility construction of RMB498.022 million. Upon completion and running, the project is expected to bring about annual sales of RMB985.6737 million, including an annual net profit of RMB117.5713 million, which will generate increased economic benefits.