Indon PTA producers benefit from Korean/Taiwan outages

30 May 2002 07:47  [Source: ICIS news]

JAKARTA (CNI)--Most of Indonesia's purified terephthalic acid (PTA) producers are reportedly running at full capacity to take advantage of higher product prices caused mainly by recent outages of Taiwanese and South Korean PTA plants.

Industry sources told CNI on Thursday that Indonesian PTA producers had also benefited due to increased demand from the China market and an improvement in local demand, especially from polyethylene terephthalate (PET) resin producers.

The sources said that the three companies benefiting most from the supply shortage were PT Mitsubishi Chemical with a total PTA capacity of 600 000 tonne/year, PT Polyprima Karyareksa with a 400 000 tonne/year capacity and PT Amoco Mitsui Indonesia with 350 000 tonne/year.

Executives at Polyprima and company subsidiary PT Polypet Karyapersada, which has a capacity of 84 000 tonne/year, confirmed they were running at full capacity, largely because of strong demand from the China market and the local market.

No official from Mitsubishi Chemical was able to confirm their plants' operating rates.

The industry source said two other Indonesian PTA producers, PT Polysindo Eka Perkasa with a capacity of 350 000 tonne/year and Pertamina with 225 000 tonne/year, are expected to run their plants at around 80% of installed capacity

Asian PTA prices have rallied by up to $35/tonne CFR Asia in the past month with business for late May settled at $640/tonne CFR Asia, largely caused by outages in South Korea and Taiwan.

KP Chemical was forced to shut down a 250 000 tonne/year PTA line in Ulsan, South Korea, on 22 April due to a problem with a compressor unit. The company does not expect to restart the line for 5-6 months.

Meanwhile, DuPont Far Eastern Petrochemicals is due to shut down this month its 450 000 tonne/year PTA plant in Taiwan for a three week scheduled turnaround.

By: Jack Lukup
+65 6780 4359

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