JAKARTA, Indonesia, June 21, 2021 /PRNewswire/ — PT Chandra Asri Petrochemical Tbk, Indonesia’s largest integrated petrochemical company, has been actively supplying the country’s growing automotive industry for the past decade. Indonesia is the ASEAN region’s second-largest producer of motor vehicles – trailing only Thailand – typically manufacturing nearly 1 million passenger cars and just under 250,000 commercial vehicles per year. The sector is vital to the country’s economic well-being, accounting for more than 10 percent of its gross domestic product.

The Indonesian government recently enacted legislation that would effectively increase local content sourcing for all vehicles manufactured in the country. This includes a strong push toward electric vehicles (EVs), with minimum local content of 35 percent for any four-wheeled EVs made this year, rising throughout the coming years to reach at least 80 percent in 2030.

“Chandra Asri strives to help meet the demand,” notes Supriyanto, the firm’s general manager of technical service and product development. “The company is proactively developing and producing innovative, high-performance impact copolymer (ICP) resins to help local automakers comply with the local content requirements,” he said.

Chandra Asri partnered with Milliken’s Chemical Division, a global producer of advanced plastic additives, to develop this latest ICP polypropylene (PP) resin grade called Trilene BI55GN. With a melt flow rate (MFR) of 50 g/10 min. – the highest MFR of all the firm’s ICP grades – it is well suited for large automotive applications, such as bumper fascia and instrument panels.

“Trilene BI55GN has already been qualified for use in instrument panels by one of Japan’s leading vehicle makers,” according to Supriyanto. “The grade also has shown promising evaluation results at other leading automakers, who are expected to qualify the resin in the near future,” he noted.

In conjunction with the new resin’s high MFR, Milliken’s Hyperform HPN performance additive “helps to boost productivity for the converters, while also delivering a good balance in properties between stiffness and impact resistance, as well as excellent dimensional stability,” according to Bhavesh Gandhi, Milliken’s global product line manager for Hyperform HPN.

“Chandra Asri has the capacity to meet current and future market demands for BI55GN, which can also be used in thin-wall packaging applications,” said Hendra Gunawan, the company’s general manager of polymer sales.

Supriyanto added: “This latest grade complements Chandra Asri’s established grade of ICP PP resin, called Trilene BI32AN, previously developed with Milliken. That medium-flow grade (38 MFR) also has excellent physical properties and dimensional stability, which makes it suitable for a wide variety of applications, including housewares and appliances, as well as for many parts in the automotive sector. Trilene BI32AN is considered a benchmark grade in two-wheel vehicle applications.”

“Chandra Asri will continue with its innovative development efforts,” Hendra said, “with a view to anticipating market trends, satisfying customers’ needs and supporting the government’s policies that focus on increasing the use of local content of Indonesian-made vehicles.”