BP gets Government Go-ahead for PTA Plant in Zhuhai, China

18 June 2013

BP and its partner, Zhuhai Port Co, today received final approvals from the Chinese Government for the construction of a third purified terephthalic acid (PTA) plant, at Zhuhai, Guangdong

The ‘Zhuhai 3’ plant will have a capacity of 1.25 million tonnes per year and is expected to start up in late 2014. PTA is an important feedstock for polyester used worldwide in food packaging and textiles.

Nick Elmslie, Chief Executive of BP Global Petrochemicals said: “This plant will be using BP’s latest proprietary technology and should make BP Zhuhai the most competitive PTA producer in the world. As one of the largest PTA producers in the world, our aim is to invest continuously in the right projects as well as invest to improve the competitiveness of our PTA sites and PTA joint ventures globally.”

Mark Wilson, President of Aromatics Asia and China Olefins & Derivatives, added “Zhuhai 3 will be the first to employ BP’s latest generation PTA technology. This should deliver a step change in environmental performance, reducing both greenhouse gas emissions and other waste streams significantly. Compared with other conventional technologies, we expect the new plant to achieve 75% lower water discharge, 65% lower greenhouse gas emissions, and 95% lower solid waste generation, meeting and exceeding strict effluent discharge requirements.”

Liming Chen, President of BP China said: “We are very glad to see the approval of this project which is an integral part of BP’s business portfolio in China. This investment demonstrates again our commitment to BP’s long term development in China, and reinforces our aspiration to grow in China.”

Zhuhai 3 joins two earlier phases of PTA units at the same location, bringing total capacity at the site to more than 2.7 million tonnes per year. After the start-up of Zhuhai 3, BP’s worldwide net PTA capacity will be 8.25 million tonnes per year.

In 2012, BP decided to make this latest generation PTA technology available for licensing by third parties and in July 2012, we concluded our first license sale.

PTA is the preferred raw material used to manufacture polyethylene terephthalate (PET), a widely used polyester polymer for the production of textiles, bottles, packaging and film products. In China, 90 per cent of PTA production is used in the textile industry.

BP Zhuhai Chemical Company Ltd was formed as a joint venture between BP (85 per cent) and Zhuhai Port Co., Ltd. (formerly named Fu Hua Group) (15 per cent) in 1997. The venture’s first and second PTA plants began production in 2003 and 2008 respectively.

BP has been operating in China since the early 1970s. As at April 2013 BP operate 17 active joint ventures and wholly-owned BP business entities, hiring over 1300 direct employees and about 3700 people via its joint ventures. With a total investment of about US$4.9billion at the end of 2012, BP is one of the leading foreign investors in China. BP’s business activities include deep water exploration, petrochemicals manufacturing and marketing, aviation fuel supply, oil product and lubricant retailing, and the chemicals technology licensing.

BP press release