Ticona/DSM Joint Venture Chases Roaring World Polybutylene Terephthalate Demand

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Researched by Industrialinfo.com (Industrial Information Resources, Incorporated; Houston, Texas). A planned 50/50 joint venture between the Celanese (XETRA & NYSE) (Kronberg in Taurus, Germany) subsidiary Ticona and DSM (Euronext:DSM) (Heerlen, Netherlands) will build a world scale 60,000 t/yr polybutylene terephthalate (PBT) plant at Emmen in the Netherlands. The plant is scheduled to go online in the second half of 2003. The contract for the plant has been awarded to Ems Inventa Fischer (Ems, Switzerland & Berlin, Germany).

DSM already has a 30,000 t/yr PBT plant at Emmen, which was expanded in 1999. The plant brings in raw material feedstock. Ticona has a 40 year-old, 60,000 t/yr plant in Shelby, North Carolina, producing both PBT and engineering grade polyethylene terephthalate (PET).

The Emmen project will be Ticona's first PBT project expansion in Europe. Ticona is also a partner in the largest PBT unit in Japan with Teijin and Daicel in Win Tech, a Polyplastics subsidiary. Win Tech has a 10,000 t/yr plant at Fuji City and is about to complete a 50,000 t/yr plant at Matsuryama in Japan.

A new 30,000 t/yr PBT facility will be located in Bishop, Texas and will replace the existing plant in Bayport, Texas. When the plant comes online in the middle of this year it will double US capacity at a cost of around $44 million.

The largest markets generating growth for PBT are the automotive (30%), electrical and electronic industries (60%). Current world PBT capacity is around 400,000 t/yr, nearly 25% of which is in Europe. The global market for PBT is growing at annual rate of 7% and Ticona and DSM are backing this strong growth and are confident that output from the new plant will be easily absorbed.

PBT is a partially crystalline engineering thermoplastic, noted for its high heat resistance, stiffness and hardness, excellent electrical properties and good resistance to many environmental influences. The base resin manufactured in the proposed plant will be used as a raw material for the compounds and blends that each of the three participants will produce and market independently. The compounds include flame retardant, glass fiber reinforced, mineral-filled and thermoplastically modified grades. Blends of PBT with polycarbonate, polyester and acrylonite/styrene/butyl acrylate (ASA) are also available.