Glenn Kmecz, DuPont

   Glenn Kmecz, the global engineering leader for DuPont's titanium dioxide business who signed on to lead the planning for a US$1-billion titanium dioxide complex in the city of Dongying, Shandong province, has seen plenty in his 33 years with the company. But the speed of China's construction process even leaves him agog.
   "I was amazed," he says when asked about infrastructure in the country. "When I first went to Dongying, they showed us some maps with lines and said they were putting in roads. I came back four months later and it was blacktop. They can make stuff happen in a hurry, and have a lot less bureaucracy."
   "The Chinese government is good," says Meseroll. "If something needs to be improved, it gets done. It's a hard infrastructure country. Over five years, it's investing $60 billion in infrastructure." That may even include the traditionally lagging railroad infrastructure, and it already includes hundreds of new electric generating stations putting out tens of thousands of megawatts (see sidebar).
   The final project agreement is still being ironed out with Dongying for the DuPont plant, the company's largest single investment project outside the U.S. Expected to be complete in 2010, the facility at the former site of a fish farming operation will employ approximately 350 and have an annual capacity of 200,000 tons of TiO2. The new plant joins a worldwide DuPont titanium dioxide portfolio (the world's largest) that includes plants in DeLisle, Miss. (damaged by Hurricane Katrina); New Johnsonville, Tenn.; Edge Moor, Del.; Altamira, Mexico; Uberaba, Brazil; and Kuan Yin, Taiwan, all of which utilize the chloride manufacturing process.
   "The planning and construction of a project of this complexity is not quickly or easily accomplished, yet we have reached this remarkable milestone in just eight months," said Richard C. Olson, vice president and general manager of DuPont Titanium Technologies, at a November 2005 ceremony.

Transport (Rail Excepted) Not Among Chief Concerns    In May the American Chamber of Commerce in China launched its annual white paper listing the chief concerns of its 900-company membership. Its key recommendations: improving IPR enforcement, market access, and transparency in policymaking on the Chinese side, and adjusting the business visa, export control, and trade promotion policies on the U.S. side.    Conspicuous by their absence were the hard-asset issues of transport and electrical power infrastructure. That's because China is moving as fast on those fronts as its companies do to put up a building.    Parts are inadequate, like rail, which "never seems to get as much attention as ports or highways," says Dennis Meseroll, but look for that to catch up too. As for action on the power front, Meseroll points to the moratorium on electric generating stations implemented in 2002. By 2004, there was a severe shortage, with some areas around Shanghai closing down plants for 2-3 days a week during the summer. Power authorities warned some areas that if the temperatures dropped below freezing, a power shortage could well be next.    But in 2006-2007, says Meseroll, "we're looking at going back to a surplus again." Hundreds of new generating stations putting out tens of thousands of megawatts are coming online, virtually all coal- fired save for the headline-grabbing Three Gorges Dam project. He says there is some discussion of new nuclear facilities as well. Thus power constraints have become much less of an issue in very quick order.

"It is important that all parties maintain the momentum that made this day possible and resolve the remaining issues promptly. It is in everyone's best interests that we maintain our aggressive project schedule."
   Kmecz says his team of half a dozen started out its site search in early 2003 and concluded in late 2004. They considered 26 potential locations at first, all of which were near the east coast of China. But unlike so many Chinese projects these days, those locales were not market- or labor-driven.
   "Our primary criterion for selection really was geology," says Kmecz. "You might say that's kind of strange for a chemical company. But we were looking for a large plot of land. We did not want to locate near a major city, because the process technology we employ does use chlorine and there is potential concern about chlorine releases although we run a very safe and stable chemistry. So we wanted to be away from major populations."
   With a population of 1.8 million, Dongying certainly fit that bill, as well as the notion of being a second-tier city with first-tier capabilities.
   "Geology was prime because our method of disposal was underground injection, which relies on certain types of geology, going two miles into the ground, to dispose of these waste materials," continues Kmecz. "That ended up being our primary driver. So we would start with areas where there was no, or very low, seismic activity. Geologists went in and screened the areas. The whole premise, sanctioned by the U.S. EPA, looks at a 10,000- year containment plume – suffice it to say it requires a certain type of geology and certain containment layers above, to make sure it's not going to migrate horizontally and come up somewhere else."
   Actually, that geographic scan started literally worldwide, and market did play into the search.
   "Very early on, we did some screening reviews and a coarse geology run-through and looked at places like Vietnam, India, South America and Australia," says Kmecz. "We wanted to satisfy ourselves there wasn't an opportunity we were missing. But the growth is in China, and we wanted to be in China versus around the edge of it. The way our markets are growing, we do have a significant edge in the marketplace, and we felt now was the time to make that inroad into China, because we felt the first there would capture the lion's share of the market. There are a lot of small producers – 60 or so 40- to- 60- ton producers – and we're building a plant that's 200,000 tons [in capacity]."