Contractor releases workers from M&G US PET project

HOUSTON (ICIS)–Fluor released 274 workers from the polyethylene terephthalate (PET) plant under construction by Mossi & Ghisolfi (M&G) in Corpus Christi, Texas, according to information obtained on Wednesday.

In an email to ICIS, Fluor said it “was recently informed by M&G/Chemtex that it is suspending Fluor’s work at its site in Corpus Christi, Texas”.

Recently, M&G said, “The company is in active dialogue with its key stakeholders regarding its near-term needs. Those discussions are ongoing.”

M&G had been targeting start-up for the PET unit in the fourth quarter of this year, with a purified terephthalic acid (PTA) plant to follow in second quarter. Construction was ongoing when Hurricane Harvey struck the Texas Gulf Coast, and an M&G spokesperson said afterward that the company was assessing the effects of the storm on the facility.

The Fluor news follows Alpek’s announcement on 12 September that it has stopped supplying feedstock PTA to M&G-operated PET plants in Altamira, Mexico, and Suape, Brazil, as a result of past-due payments totalling $49m, or 40% of its total balance.

Alpek also has supply rights for 500,000 tonnes/year of PET at M&G’s Corpus Christi plant. The company said it will “heighten its continued assessment and monitoring of the project’s status and act accordingly” with regard to the Corpus Christi plant.

Late last year, contractors and subcontractors claimed non-payment of bills totalling tens of millions of dollars. Another contractor was brought in to complete the construction work, and the company worked to resolve the payment disputes.

Nameplate capacity would be 1.1m tonnes/year of PET and 1.3m tonnes/year of PTA.

Pictured above is a PET bottle. Source: imageBROKER/REX/Shutterstock