Lotte PPTA investment to expand its PTA capacity to 1.5m tonnes/year

(ICIS) -- The fate of Lotte Pakistan PTA's (Lotte PPTA) investment to expand its purified terephthalic acid (PTA) capacity to 1.5m tonnes/year in the country depends on the government's decision to increase import tariffs to protect the industry, a company executive said over the weekend.

The company, which has a 500,000 tonne/year plant in Port Qasim, located 50km (31 miles) outside the industrial port city of Karachi, is planning to spend up to $500m (┬375m) on the expansion, Asif Saad, the CEO of Lotte PPTA, earlier told ICIS.

Pakistan's Board of Investment (BOI) earlier this year requested the company, the only PTA maker in the country, to submit a proposal to undertake the expansion, according to Saad.

Lotte PPTA wants the import tariffs should be benchmarked with countries where PTA production and demand are growing, and that have similar industry structures. The PTA tariff in the EU is at 6% and the tariff in China is 6.5%, while India's tariff stands at 5%, Saad said.


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(ICIS) -- LyondellBasell's refinery at Berre L'Etang, France, restarted on Monday after employees agreed to return to work following a 10-day strike, the Netherlands-headquartered petrochemical producer said. LyondellBasell's management decided to restart the plant for three months until 31 December before having it mothballed for up to two years, allowing time to find a possible buyer for the facility, according to company spokesman David Harpole.

Industrial action was initially triggered when LyondellBasell announced it intended to close its 105,000 bbl/day refinery at Berre L'Etang, having failed to find a buyer for the asset. About 370 jobs would have been affected. The strike action forced LyondellBasell to shut its refinery and petrochemical site on 27 September.

However, an agreement, reached on Friday night in Paris in joint discussions between refinery management and union representatives, was approved by employees in a special assembly on Saturday, Harpole said.

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(BASF) -- The first production facilities in the $1.4 billion expansion of BASF-YPC Company Limited have now begun operations. Along with the successful completion of the steam cracker expansion, the newly constructed butadiene extraction plant and the non-ionic surfactants plant are now operational.


"With this expansion, we are now beginning to realize the true potential of BASF-YPC as a 'Verbund' site - a German term referring to a highly-integrated, highly energy-efficient production complex. At the same time, the chemicals produced here contribute directly to supporting China's energy efficiency goals as outlined in the 12th Five Year Plan," said Dr. Bernd Blumenberg, President, BASF-YPC Company Limited.


These plants are part of a $1.4 billion investment project which broke ground in September 2009. The project includes the expansion of the existing steam cracker, from 600,000 tons/year to 740,000 tons/year of ethylene, the expansion of three existing plants, and the construction of ten new plants. The products of this second phase will serve multiple industries such as agriculture, construction, electronics, pharmaceutical, automotive and chemical manufacturing.


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LONDON (ICIS)--Lotte Chemical UK's plans to expand its polyethylene terephthalate (PET) operations at Wilton in northeast England to 350,000 tonnes/year has received board approval, a company source confirmed on Friday.

"The expansion and further integration in C8 enables us to be competitive in the wider European market as we go forward," said Lotte Chemical UK business director Mark Kenrick.
Work to add a new 200,000 tonne/year plant alongside the existing 150,000 tonne/year facility is due for completion by the third or fourth quarter of 2013, the company said in an earlier press release. No financial details were disclosed.

In the press release SY Huh, president of Lotte's parent company KP, said the plan demonstrated KP's ambition to become "an Asia Top 10 Global Group by 2018".
Lotte Chemical UK has been given a conditional regional growth fund (RGF) offer by the UK government, which is expected to be fully confirmed by the end of 2011.
According to urban regeneration company Tees Valley Unlimited, Lotte Chemical UK has been given approval for ?6.7m (┬7.7m, $10.3m) of RGF support towards the construction of a new PET plant.
Lotte Chemical UK manufactures and sells polyester intermediate PTA and PET resin for use in the packaging industry.


Plans to expand at Lotte Chemical UK were first indicated as a possibility to ICIS in March. This announcement and the expansion plans of other PET and upstream purified terephthalic acid (PTA)producers have prompted concern among industry players that the market will be oversupplied.
"The market won't be able to absorb it all," one supplier said, echoing comments from others.

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SINGAPORE (ICIS)--Taiwan's Formosa Petrochemical Corp (FPCC) reported a 2% year-on-year drop in September revenue to New Taiwan dollar (NT$) 47.7bn ($1.56bn), with its petrochemical operations recording a decline of more than 16% in turnover.

FPCC's petrochemical business generated NT$11.5bn in revenue in September, down year on year from NT$13.8bn, according to data on the company's website.
For the first nine months of 2011, FPCC's total turnover at NT$595.7bn was still about 5% higher compared with the same period last year, data showed.

Compared with the first nine months of 2010, petrochemical revenue for January-September 2011, however, slipped by about 2% to NT$177.6bn, which accounts for about 30% of FPCC's total turnover for the period, based on the data.
FPCC had production disruptions at its petrochemical complex in Mailiao, Taiwan, because of fire incidents.

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