Chemours Inaugurates Opteon Facility, Boosts Production

The Chemours Company (NYSE:CC) recently announced the inauguration of its new Opteon production plant located near Corpus Christi in Ingleside, TX. The $300-million facility will triple its Opteon YF capacity. Opteon YF is a hydrofluoro olefin (HFO)-based refrigerant used in vehicles and retail stores globally.

Opteon YF enables the reduction of greenhouse gases. It has a lower Global Warming Potential (GWP) than legacy refrigerant when applied in the automotive air conditioning systems. As such, it is a significant step toward addressing environmental global-warming regulations across the globe.

Lately, the United States, the European Union and Japan have rolled out stricter environmental standards for commercial refrigeration, mobile air conditioning along with commercial and residential air conditioning. The new regulations and customers’ changing preferences demand high performance, environmentally sustainable refrigerants and blends. Notably, the company’s Opteon refrigerants have zero ozone depletion potential along with very low GWP.

The refrigerants produced by the company from the new facility will be delivered to a rapidly growing global customer base. Moreover, many global companies have selected Opteon products for commercial and residential air conditioning applications, including Mitsubishi Electric Hydronics and IT Cooling Systems SpA (MEHITS), Carrier, E-Mart as well as Johnson Controls (NYSE:JCI).

Per the company, the number for cars using HFO-1234yf in the mobile air conditioning market is expected grow to 145 million by the end of 2020. The company expects the usage of HFO technology in place of conventional refrigerants to reduce 113 million tons of carbon dioxide emissions by the end of 2020. This is equivalent of removing 24 million cars off the road for a year. Chemours expects low-GWP product line to remove an estimated 325 million tons of carbon dioxide equivalent by 2025 on a global basis.

Chemours’ shares have plunged around 46.1% in the past year compared with 34.2% decline of the industry.

Zacks Rank & Key Picks

Chemours currently carries a Zacks Rank #3 (Hold).

Some better-ranked stocks in the basic materials space are Materion Corporation (NYSE:MTRN) , Flexible Solutions International Inc (NYSE:FSI) and AngloGold Ashanti Limited (NYSE:AU) . These stocks currently sport a Zacks Rank #1 (Strong Buy). You can see the complete list of today’s Zacks #1 Rank stocks here.

Materion has an expected earnings growth rate of 27.3% for 2019. The company’s shares have gained 20.1% in the past year.

Flexible Solutions has a projected earnings growth rate of 342.9% for the current year. The company’s shares have surged 141.3% in a year’s time.

AngloGold has an estimated earnings growth rate of 90.6% for the current year. Its shares have rallied 117.1% in the past year.

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