JBF Industries starts up Europe's largest PET plant in Belgium

JBF Industries (Mumbai) says it has started up its new PET polyethylene terephthalate plant based in the city of Geel, which is in the Provence of Antwerp and will be a co-location plant next to British Petroleum's (BP) PTA facility The plant, designed to produce 432,000 m.t./year of PET, is Europe’s largest PET facility. The company has begun commercial production on the first of two lines, which has a capacity for 216,000 m.t./year. The second line is slated to come onstream this month.

The Geel unit receives purified terephthalic acid feedstock from BP Chembel’s 1.3 million m.t./year plant at Geel. British Petroleum had short listed JBF after reviewing other global PET manufacturers to setup this plant. Being a co-location plant with BP's PTA facility will ensure continuous supply of PTA with logistcal cost savings being passed to JBF Industries.

JBF Currently does not supply any bottle grade chips to the European Union market. But is sees a strong demand for bottle grade chips in EU and the EU is still a net importer of bottle grade chips.