Primary PET capacity closer to coming online in Louisiana

The Thailand-based owner of a proposed primary PET (polyethylene terephthalate) production facility says it has taken “an important step forward in maintaining the plant’s startup schedule” by securing an air permit.

Indorama Ventures, the majority owner of the proposed Lake Charles, Louisiana, gas cracker facility that will produce ethylene from shale gas, says it has received an air permit from U.S. authorities that is “the main environmental permit required by the company in order to proceed with refurbishment of the cracker, [allowing] the project to commence the repair and construction activities at the site a month ahead of the original target date.”

Ethylene from the cracker will feed the production of MEG (monoethylene glycol), which is used to make PET (polyethylene terephthalate). When complete, Indorama Ventures says it “will become the most vertically integrated PET producer in North America.”

The project received a wastewater permit in June and also has completed debottlenecking-related engineering and has ordered its “major long-lead-time equipment,” according to Indorama.

Mechanical completion is expected in the third quarter of 2017, followed by commissioning and startup in the fourth quarter of 2017.

According to Plastics Technology magazine, PET prices dropped in July 2016 by nearly 20 cents per pound. “The glut of prime PET in the U.S. (not to mention an abundance of recycled PET pellets) has emerged just as what’s touted to be the world’s largest PET plant is expected online soon,” the magazine reports, referring not to the Indorama project but to one in Corpus Christi, Texas, being managed by Luxembourg-based M&G Chemicals.