Indorama To Get A BP PTA Plant

Thai polyester giant Indorama Ventures has agreed to purchase BP’s purified terephthalic acid plant in Decatur, Ala. The plant supplies PTA to an adjacent Indorama polyethylene terephthalate plant. The BP facility has 1 million metric tons of annual PTA capacity and 732,000 metric tons of capacity for the PTA raw material p-xylene. It is also the world’s only plant that commercially produces naphthalene dicarboxylate, a chemical used in performance films for high-end applications such as smartphones. The sale, expected to close later this year, doesn’t signal an exit from the PTA business for BP. The company says it is spending $200 million to upgrade its Cooper River, S.C., and Geel, Belgium, facilities, the largest PTA plants in North America and Europe, respectively.