A new technology offers cost benefit to PET producers

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PET business is in a transition phase since early 2000. Not only is the profitability of PET business reducing; but growth in the sector has also reduced since 2002. With oil prices hovering around US$80-90, there seems to be no respite for this industry. Globally stiff competition has grown, particularly from smaller manufacturers of Asia. Projects b the Middle Eastern producers could also pose tough competition on account of lower feedstock prices. Hence PET manufacturers are concentrating on rationalization and cost reduction. A new technology called a single step process or Melt To Resin (MTR) would help producers reduce manufacturing cost. This new technology has seen some commercialization in the early part of this decade.
PET manufacturing process technology began with 5 reactors. These were then reduced to 4 in the mid eighties. In the MTR process technology, only 2 reactors are used. The conventional process technology consists of polycondensation followed by solid state crystallization. A new reactor design helps MTR process technology to complete the entire work of polycondensation and crystallization in only 1 reactor instead of 2 separate reactors. This new technology can produce PET in viscosity range of 0.65-0.85. An interesting feature of this technology is that it inherently produces PET with less than 1 PPM acetaldehyde content and with crystallinity level below 45%. This new technology can produce PET at lows of 250-300,000 tpa and as high as 500,000 tpa. Higher production level reduces the fixed cost, offering better economies.
MTR technology offers other advantages. They are:

		Saving of equipment cost due to lack of solid step crystallizer (SSP)
		No labour required to operate SSP plant
		Absence of nitrogen blanking reduces energy cost

UHde, one of the technology supplier claims benefits of their MTR technology compared to 4 reactors conventional SSP technology as:

		25-26 % lower capital cost
		20-21 % lower fixed cost
		40% lower energy cost
		Overall conversion cost lower 25-30%
		Approximately 1.5 % lower cost of raw material (MEG & PTA )

India's Reliance Industries in India was probably the first manufacturer to use this new technology. Another plant was recently commissioned in USA. The total capacity of this technology that is presently in operation is just below 1 mln tons.