PTA plant in Brazil will supply feedstock to M & G’s new PET plant

Italy’s M & G Group is to follow up its world scale PET investment in the Pernambuco province in Brazil with a big plant to make PTA feedstock for the polymer. The new PTA unit employs the latest Invista technology and will have capacity of 750,000tpa. It is scheduled to come on stream early in 2008.

Around half of the output will be used at the new 450,000tpa PET plant now under construction; the remainder will be available for other South American demand or for export. According to Marco Ghisolfi, chief executive of the company’s Polymers Business Unit, the investment will “fill the void left by decades of under investment in the country’s polyester industry which forced Brazil to make ever increasing and resource draining imports”.

By the end of next year, he said, Brazil will boast PET capacity of 700,000tpa, almost double current domestic demand, and the country will be a net exporter.