MOSCOW (MRC) -- The Ecopet Kaliningrad petrochemical plant may launch production of recycled PET in two years, Devon news agency reported, citing Alexander Anikeev, CEO of Ecopet.
“This year we have a new shareholder — Tatneft, a profile player in the petrochemical market,” he said. “Together with our colleagues from Tatneft, we have conceived the expansion, namely the construction of a new unit. We are working on this issue with European licensors. Changes take place no sooner than two years from now.
At the same time, Ecopet's sales strategy will not change in 2022, A. Anikeev assured. “Our strategy provides for 95% shipments under contracts and 5% for spot,” he explained. we will already begin to develop products, and in February we will have volumes for the spot market."
Ecopet is the largest producer of polyethylene terephthalate in the Russian Federation. The share of the company's products in the Russian market is 37%. The design capacity of the plant for the production of PET is 220,000 tonnes per year. However, Ecopet has been operating at 110% capacity utilization for the past two years.
At the end of 2021, the company produced 234,000 tonnes. In 2022, 242,000 tonnes are expected to be produced.
Ecopet intends to switch to the industrial production of high quality fiber PET. The volume of production will depend on the demand of the market, Anikeev explained. "The demand of the Russian market for such grades is low: Titan-Polymer - about 70,000 tonnes per year, Flex Films Rus - about 30,000 tonnes per year. We will rebuild the technology upon request," he said.
Prior to this, the Kaliningrad enterprise had already produced small test batches of fiber polyethylene terephthalate. They were tested by Texkor, Flex Films Rus, Mogilevkhimvolokno and Retal.
Tatneft bought Ecopet in June 2021. The deal amounted to 6.4 bn rubles. The company is engaged in the production and sale of polyethylene terephthalate in Russia and Eastern Europe.
Tatneft also plans to launch the production of terephthalic acid (PTA) in order to provide its Ecopet plant in the Kaliningrad region with raw materials.
Ecopet is Europe's largest producer of polyethylene terephthalate. Ecopet JSC is a resident of the SEZ in the Kaliningrad region. The Ecopet group includes OOO TD "Ecopolymers" - a distributor that supplies PET both to the Russian market and to the markets of the European Union and the CIS. Another asset, BaltTechProm LLC, is an industrial park with an area of ??132 hectares with a prospective development site for another 103 hectares.
MRC