Mexican petrochemicals producer Petrotemex (Monterrey; www.petrotemex.com), a subsidiary of Alpek (Mexico City; www.alpek.com) – Mexico’s largest petrochemicals group – has entered a joint venture agreement with United Petrochemical Company (UPC), a subsidiary of Russian holding conglomerate Sistema (Moscow; www.sistema.com), for the construction of an integrated PTA and PET plant in Ufa / Russia.

The planned facility is based on Alpek’s “IntegRex” technology and is targeted to serve the Russian PET market with a maximum installed capacity of 600,000 t/y of PTA and 600,000 t/y PET. Through the agreement, Alpek and UPC will develop a detailed business plan to determine the project’s feasibility and will each invest USD 10m (EUR 7.3m) in the evaluation stage.

Feedstock PX will be sourced domestically and Alpek said supply negotiations are underway with Sistema subsidiary Bashneft (Moscow; www.bashneft.com), one of Russia’s largest private oil companies.