APIC ’12: Lotte puts on hold $500m Pakistan PTA expansion

18 May 2012 05:11  [Source: ICIS news]

KUALA LUMPUR (ICIS)--Lotte Pakistan PTA (Lotte PPTA) has put on hold its plans to build a $500m (€395m) world-scale purified terephthalic acid (PTA) plant after failing to secure the Pakistani government’s support in terms of higher import tariffs as protection for the domestic industry, a company executive said on Friday.

“At this time we are disengaged,” Lotte PPTA CEO Asif Saad told ICIS in an interview.

Lotte PPTA was initially looking at building a second PTA plant in Pakistan that will have a capacity of between 800,000 tonnes/year and 1m tonnes/year in Pakistan, but the investment is contingent on raising the 3% PTA import tariff to 7.5%.

The company operates Pakistan’s sole PTA plant, which has a 500,000 tonne/year capacity, located at Port Qasim.

($1 = €0.79)

By: Tahir Ikram
+65 6780 4359

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