Hualian Sunshine undecided on PTA expansion

03 August 2007 10:42  [Source: ICIS news]

SINGAPORE (ICIS news)--Chinese producer Hualian Sunshine Petrochemical has yet to decide whether to go ahead with plans to build new purified terephthalic acid (PTA) lines, a senior company official said on Friday.

The company, which currently produces 1.8 million tonnes/year of PTA at Shaoxing in the eastern Chinese province of Zhejiang, has a so-called Phase Three plan for new PTA capacities.

“That plan is not confirmed at all, as we’re now focusing on the existing three lines,” said the senior official, who said he could not to give any details such as exact capacity or a start-up date on the proposed plans.

Few PTA market players said that Hualian would be able to lift PTA production capacity soon because of the difficult market conditions for PTA.

“PTA producers, including [Hualian Sunshine], are not truly making money, so it’s no surprise that we see them delaying the plans indefinitely,” said one of Hualian Sunshine’s customers.

PTA prices had kept to around $900-940/tonne CFR (cost and freight) China for the most of the past three months, but feedstock paraxylene (PX) costs rose to as high as $1,300/tonne CFR Taiwan in the same period, forcing PTA makers to suffer losses for the most of this year.

Prices were currently assessed at $920/tonne CFR China, barely breaking even based on PX costs of around $1,150-1,160/tonne CFR.

By: Salmon Aidan Lee
+65 6780 4359

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