M&G Polymers Closes PET Unit In West Virginia

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Researched by Industrialinfo.com (Industrial Information Resources, Incorporated; Houston, Texas). M&G Polymers USA LLC (Apple Grove, West Virginia), a privately owned company and a subsidiary of Gruppo Mossi and Ghisolfi (Tortona, Italy), is closing a 220 pound per year polyethylene terephthalate (PET) unit at its Apple Grove, West Virginia plant. Built in early 1980's, the unit is considered to be the smallest and oldest unit at the Apple Grove plant site. Although, the company regrets having to shut the unit down, their decision was based on the high cost of feedstock prices and lack of competition with other older PET units in the United States.

This is M&G's only production plant in the United States and without this unit running, the plant’s production will be reduced from 626 million pounds per year of PET to 406 million pounds per year. Over the past few years, the plant has invested an estimated $35 million into the plant, as reported by Industrialinfo.com, in adding new equipment and performing general upgrades to the plant.

The unit has ceased production and is currently being decommissioned. M&G hopes to be complete with that process by the end of the year, and will begin selecting contractors early 2005 to dismantle and sell the remaining equipment.

M&G Polymer is expanding PET production capacity from 310,000 million tons per year to 438,000 million tons per year at its production plant in Altamira, Mexico, as reported in February 2004 by Industrialinfo.com.

For details see related industry alerts: M&G PET Production Boost at Altamira and Plans for New Brazil Plant to Feed South American Demand and M&G Polymers Nears Completion of PET Expansion in West Virginia.

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