Construction resumes 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—has resumed construction of its integrated purified terephthalic acid-polyethylene terephthalate (PTA-PET) plant in Corpus Christi, Tex. (OGJ Online, July 19, 2022).

CCP has enlisted Sarens USA Inc. to assist with lifting ultra-heavy loads during a 16-month construction period on site via its supply of a range of high-lifting capacity cranes to assist in plant assembly, the service provider said on July 19.

Construction on the PTA-PET plant—which remains scheduled for commissioning in 2025—officially restarted as planned in 2022 following a previous halt to development activities amid pandemic-related disruptions, Sarens said.

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.

Upon startup, the plant is slated to become the world’s largest vertically integrated PTA-PET manufacturing site and will also produce its own industrial water via desalination, CCP said in 2022.

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.