Uhde Inventa-Fischer: OCTAL Petrochemicals opens the world’s largest rigid PET sheet plant

OCTAL Petrochemicals has opened the world’s largest rigid PET sheet and resin plant located in the southeast port city of Salalah, Sultanate of Oman. This is the second PET facility run by the company and has a capacity of 300,000 metric tons per annum. The two new lines use the Melt-To-Resin MTR® technology proprietary to Uhde Inventa-Fischer (www.uhde-inventa-fischer.com), and direct casting of sheet for thermoforming.

The MTR® process is based on Uhde Inventa-Fischer’s 2 Reactor technology. It produces PET resin from PTA and MEG plus co-monomers in melt-phase up to the ready-to-use high viscosity for sheet applications. The quality of the side-stream MTR® pellets is superior to product from an SSP plant, and offers improved processability at reduced conversion cost.

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Uhde Inventa-Fischer supplied the basic and detail engineering, the equipment, and supervision of erection and commissioning.

The plant is the first one fully dedicated to PET production from resin melt to sheet. This is in contrast to the traditional model, where resin primarily engineered for bottles may also be used for thermoformed sheets.

The principal market for the plant’s output is food and appliances packaging in Europe, the US and China. According to OCTAL the plant delivers energy and cost savings, increased productivity, and enhanced optical properties as a result of the technical innovations in the production process area.

A second expansion phase is scheduled for 2011, increasing PET resin capacity by 500,000 metric tons.

Uhde Inventa-Fischer GmbH, Berlin, Germany