A new electrolysis plant for the production of chlorine and caustic soda solution was officially inaugurated for the Polish company ANWIL, a member of the PKN ORLEN Group, on April 7, 2006. The plant, located in Wloclawek, some 140 kilometres north-west of Warsaw, was engineered by Uhde and handed over to the customer in January 2006. Since then the plant has been on-stream with an annual capacity of 195,000 tonnes of chlorine and 217,000 tonnes of caustic soda solution.

Uhde's scope of services included the basic and the detail engineering, preparation of the necessary permitting documents, supply of equipment and services and also supervision of the erection and commissioning work. The contract was worth some 20 million euros.

Our fruitful cooperation with Uhde has ensured the success of what was for ANWIL an extremely important project," said Benedykt Michewicz, Chairman of ANWIL's Executive Board, on the occasion of the opening ceremony. "By investing in the conversion of our diaphragm electrolysis plant to Uhde's advanced membrane cell technology, ANWIL is making a very important contribution to reducing the variable costs and to sustainable environmental protection."

Dr Benno Lüke, Head of Uhde's Electrolysis Division, added that "the complex task was to implement the new plant into the operating complex which made the work even more difficult. This task was successfully managed by ANWIL and Uhde at targeted cost and time schedule. ANWIL was responsible for all erection work of the project."