Construction to restart on Corpus Christi PTA-PET plant

Corpus Christi Polymers LLC (CCP)—a partnership of Indorama Ventures PCL (IVL) subsidiary Indorama Ventures Corpus Christi Holdings LLC, Alpek SAB de CV subsidiary DAK Americas LLC, and Far Eastern New Century subsidiary APG Polytech USA Holdings—will resume construction of its integrated purified terephthalic acid-polyethylene terephthalate (PTA-PET) plant in Corpus Christi, Tex., later this summer.

Scheduled to begin in August, proposed restart of construction on the PTA-PET plant follows a previous halt to development activities amid pandemic-related disruptions, IVL said July 19.

CCP’s plant will use a feedstock of paraxylene and monoethylene glycol to produce 1.1 million tonnes/year (tpy) and 1.3 million tpy of PET and PTA, respectively.

The plant will be the world’s largest vertically integrated PTA-PET producer upon startup in early 2025 and will also produce its own industrial water via desalination, CCP said in a separate release on July 18.

Production technologies to be implemented at the plant include the following:

• For solid-state PET, former M&G Chemicals’ Easy-Up PET technology, or horizontal continuous inclined reactor.

• For PET melt, an unspecified process technology from Koch Industries Inc. subsidiary Invista Performance Technologies.

• For PTA, Grupo Petrotemex SA de CV’s IntegRex PTA, a process that allows oxidation at milder conditions to reduce the plant’s overall consumption of raw materials, limit generation of by-product, and reduce the site’s environmental impact.

Formed in 2018, the CCP partnership purchased now-defunct M&G USA Corp.’s partially constructed PET-PTA plant, certain M&G intellectual property, and a desalination-boiler plant as part of a stated strategy to revive the project to meet rising global demand for polymers.

Sited in Port Corpus Christi near railroads, highways, and the Gulf of Mexico, the CCP PET-PTA plant sits on 410 acres along the port’s north bank of the Inner Harbor, within a couple of miles of refineries from which the plant is to receive its feedstock.