Site Study Underway for New North American Polyethylene Terephthalate (PET) Unit

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Researched by Industrial Info Resources (Sugar Land, Texas). StarPet, Incorporated (Asheboro, North Carolina), a subsidiary of Indorama Polymers, Limited (Bangkok, Thailand), is planning to begin constructing a new polyethylene terephthalate (PET) unit in the United States or Canada within the next year. StarPet currently operates two large PET units at its Asheboro site, recently completing significant debottlenecking and expansion of the plant over the last two years.

StarPet is considering multiple sites along the United States’ East Coast, as well as Quebec, to be the home of this estimated $100 million new unit with a potential design capacity of up to 350,000 metric tons per year. Industrial Info has been tracking plans for this project for almost three years and it appears that a site location could be decided upon this month, with the selection of an E&C firm following in the first quarter of next year.

StarPet isn’t the only producer betting on continued improvement in this market segment. Eastman Chemical Company (NYSE:EMN) has completed its new 350,000 metric ton per year PET unit located at its West Columbus, South Carolina site with plans to reach full commercial production levels in the very near future. Lockwood Greene (Spartanburg, South Carolina) provided E+P+C/M services for this new unit and is expected to participate in the planning for the next round of PET expansions at the site.

Producers of PET polymers have enjoyed good economic conditions over the past couple of years despite the cost fluctuations of raw materials and energy. Demand has remained constant with increases continuing to be driven by new applications and uses for the material mostly in consumer products such as food and beverage packaging.

New capacity for this segment of the Chemical Processing Industry (CPI) will come from not only new construction, but several planned incremental upgrades as well. DAK Americas, LLC (Charlotte, North Carolina) is currently working on plans to increase production through process and utility changes within its plant located in Fayetteville, North Carolina during 2007. M&G Polymers USA, LLC (Apple Grove, West Virginia) continues to optimize two units located in Apple Grove utilizing a large infrastructure that was largely downsized not so many years ago when this market was in much poorer shape.

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Industrial Info Resources (IIR) is a Marketing Information Service company that has been doing business for over 23 years. IIR is respected as the leader in providing comprehensive market intelligence pertaining to the industrial processing, heavy manufacturing, and energy-related industries throughout the world.