MOSCOW (MRC) -- Mexico's Alpek has completed adding 5,000 mt of propylene storage to its Altamira port terminal, as per a company spokesman, reported Plastemart.
"The mechanical completion is finished and operations should ramp up in the month of May," spokesman Hernan Lozano said. Each of the two spheres has a capacity of 2,500 mt. "The purpose of the project is to make the domestic propylene logistics chain more efficient, as well as to have greater flexibility to import raw material," Lozano said.
Indelpro imports monomer on spot and contractual basis and converts it into polypropylene. The completion of the project comes amid the expected startup of Enterprise Products Partners' propane dehydrogenation unit in Mont Belvieu, Texas. Enterprise said the 750,000 mt/year PDH unit is on track to start in Q3 and could double exports year on year.
As MRC wrote earlier, Alpek, a leading petrochemical company, is all set to buy polyethylene terephthalate (PET) producer Petroquimica Suape (PQS) for USD385 million. Currently owned by Brazil's Petrobras, PQS owns a 700,000 mt/year PTA plant as well as a 450,000 mt/year PET plant in Ipojuca, Pernambuco, Brazil. After the acquisition, Alpek will own all these assets as well as Citepe - a polyester unit. Alpek already owns Mexico’s polypropylene producer Indelpro and DAK Americas, which produces PET in the US, Mexico, Canada and Argentina. The deal is awaiting corporate approvals as well as approvals by the appropriate governmental authorities.
Alpek is the petrochemicals unit of Mexican conglomerate Alfa.
MRC