China's Xinfengming partially starts up new 2.2 million mt/year PTA unit

Petrotahlil :China's Dushan Energy Ltd., a subsidiary of Xinfengming Group Co., Ltd, has partially started up its new 2.2 million mt/year purified terephthalic acid unit at Zhejiang Wednesday, sources familiar with the matter said.

The unit consists of two trains with 1.1 million mt/year each, and the raw material paraxylene was fed into one of the trains on Wednesday morning, the sources added.

There is continuous flaring at the moment, indicating operation of the oxidation unit, one of the sources added.

The company should be able to produce some PTA materials by Thursday if the operation continues to run well, they said.

The new 2.2 million mt/year PTA unit will be the first phase of the company's Yuan 7 billion ($1 billion) investment project, which includes another PTA line with the same capacity that will be in the second phase, the company announced in its official website earlier.

Phase two of its PTA line is expected to be online in the third quarter of 2020, sources close to the company said.

Asian PTA physical spot prices are heard to be relatively stable Wednesday morning compared with Tuesday.

The new PTA startup expectation has already been reflected in the continuous weak Chinese PTA prices seen since the third quarter, sources said.

Asian PTA was assessed at $5/mt lower from last Friday at $625/mt CFR China Tuesday, or down Yuan 90/mt to Yuan 4,860/mt ex-works over the same period, Platts data showed.

Xinfengming Group Co., Ltd is one of the biggest polyester producers in China, with a capacity of around 3.7 million mt/year. 

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