The M&G Group plans to build a new generation technology PET plant in USA, with an annual capacity of 800,000 tons from a single line. While 650,000 tpa is scheduled to come on-stream in H1-09, the balance 150,000 tons will come onstream as per market requirements. Plant location will be announced upon finalisation of agreements and details, in a few weeks.
The new plant will employ the same technology (including M&G's revolutionary EasyUp™ SSP technology) as its 450,000 tpa Suape (Brazil) PET plant. The Brazilian plant came on-stream in Q1-07 and has been successfully running at full nominal capacity. The PTA feed stock to support M&G's North American investment program have already been secured.
M&G also plans to debottleneck PET capacity at its plants located in Apple Grove (W. Virginia) and Altamira (Mexico), raising combined capacity by 200,000 tpa in the period 2007-08. M&G's status as the world's largest PET producer will get reinforced with these new investments, and also confirm M&G's PET technology capabilities to consistently support plant sizes twice as large as those available from the latest generation off-the-shelf technology and four times as big as the average installed base plant size. M&G International is presently the world's largest producer of PET resin for packaging applications with production capacity in 2007 of almost 1.6 mln tpa (1.1 mln tons in 2006 and 2005). After the newly announced North American investments are completed, M&G International will have a world PET capacity in excess of 2.5 mln tpa.
Several factors will combine to create a PET capacity shortage in the U.S. by the year 2009. These include: continued strong PET demand growth, partial execution and delays in M&G's competitors' previously announced investment programs, and increasingly constrained and costly imports.
27-Jul-07 
