On February 16, Bluestar Silicones International Co., Ltd. (BSI), an overseas enterprise of the Chinese group Bluestar, celebrated the 10th Anniversary at its headquarters in Lyon, France, and inaugurated the elastomer production workshop built in Saint Fons, in the presence of Michel Delpuech, Prefect of the Auvergne-Rh?ne-Alpes region and Prefect of the Rh?ne, and Gérard Collomb, Senator-Mayor of Lyon and Président of the metropolitan city of Lyon.
In 2006, Rhodia’s silicone, an important business for Rhodia, was acquired by China National Bluestar Corporation. With 50 years of development experience and advanced upstream and downstream integration technology, it has strong market competitiveness. Since BSI was established in 2007, it has become one of main world-leading producers of silicones. The Sino-French collaboration has successfully energized this silicon activity, driven by high growth and very demanding markets in terms of investments in the industry, R&D, or operational excellence. The French expertise brought its technology and knowledge on specialty activities, and built production bases in Europe. The Chinese expertise brought its capability of powerful production and manufacturing, long term industrial vision and global growth strategy in China, laying a good foundation for the win-win integration. Over the past decade, BSI has become a silicones manufacturer whose yearly sales amount to€525 million worldwide, offering a comprehensive range of silicone products in support of diverse specialty markets including paper release, textile coatings, healthcare, moldmaking, automotive and personal care.
Bluestar has been reinforced in 2011 by the integration and synergy of the entire silicon value chain along with the acquisition of Elkem AS, a well-known global silicon materials manufacturer. It has developed state-of-the-art technologies by integrating upstream silicon metal operation and downstream silicone market and applications, providing the market with comprehensive silicone products and solutions.
BSI has invested tens of million euros every year in the industrial facilities, especially in France and China, created and preserved qualified jobs, and strengthened the R&D, providing an inexhaustible driving force to its sustainable development. In order to improve the productivity and quality of elastomers, BSI invested 15 million euros in its elastomer unit on the Saint Fons plant in 2016, under the support of the Chinese group Bluestar. This workshop allows itself to increase the production capacity by 50% and better serves value-added markets such as medical service, food and beverages, etc. Furthermore, many high-end technologies applied to the workshop have created more superior working conditions for employees.
"A lot of people were wondering about our future after our company was bought by a state owned Chinese group in 2007. Today, no one doubts the mutual interest of this association. The industrial vision and powerful R&D capability of our Chinese Shareholder are why we have the ambition to reach the top 3 of global silicon leaders" declared Frédéric Jacquin, BSI’s CEO.
Michael Koenig, Bluestar’s CEO, attended the celebration and delivered a speech, expressing his thanks to the Auvergne-Rh?ne-Alpes region and Lyon Municipal Government for Bluestar’s support and help and remarking that favorable educational environment, a strong R&D background in science and technology and inclusive culture create favorable conditions for the investment and development of Bluestar in local areas. Bluestar employs directly almost 2000 people in France, half of which come from Auvergne-Rh?ne-Alpes region. The strong connection that exists between Bluestar and the local government has played a great role in this win-win partnership.