Sasa Polyester Sanayi (Adana / Turkey; www.sasa.com.tr), which focuses on fibres manufacturing, is building new facilities for polyester and PET production at its headquarters. Uhde Inventa-Fischer (Berlin / Germany; www.uhde-inventa-fischer.com) is responsible for engineering, construction and commissioning of the plant, parent company ThyssenKrupp Industrial Solutions (Essen / Germany; www.thyssenkrupp-industrial-solutions.com) has announced.

In addition to a plant for low-viscosity polyester with a capacity of 380,000 t/y of yarns, one of Uhde Inventa-Fischer’s well-known "MTR" lines, with 216,000 t/y for bottle PET, will also be built. The MTR process reduces energy consumption for production compared to conventional processes, since solid-state polycondensation (SSP) is eliminated, Uhde said. A time frame has not been specified for this.

Once again, this leaves a rather incomprehensible expansion plan for the European and global PET markets, which suffer from continuing overcapacity. Recently, there have been serious financial problems with major producers JBF and M&G. In addition, world market leader Indorama Ventures (IVL, Bangkok / Thailand; www.indoramaventures.com) has also announced the definitive closure of its plant in Workington / UK (see Plasteurope.com of 28.11.2017).

At the end of 2016, Indorama closed its plant in Adana, which had been taken over from the now insolvent La Seda (see Plasteurope.com of 09.01.2017). In 2015, the planned majority takeover of Sasa by Indorama was cancelled, and the Thai company acquired a brand new PET plant from Polyplex in Turkey (see Plasteurope.com of 16.01.2015).