Successful Commissioning of PET MTR® plant at Indorama AlphaPet Inc.

   In September 2009, Uhde Inventa-Fischer successfully commissioned the first line of Indorama’s latest PET resin plant in Alabama (USA). The second line came on stream in June 2010. The plant has an annual capacity of 432,000 tons and uses Uhde Inventa-Fischer’s proprietary patented MTR® technology. It is the largest unit producing with this technology worldwide. Various grades of resin may be produced at the same time, used for water and CSD bottling applications, as well as packaging film. It sources the PTA from the adjacent BP facility in Decatur via a direct pipeline.The 2R-MTR® process eliminates the SSP and the high energy costs inherent to this process. It reduces investment, operating and maintenance costs, has a higher raw material yield and results in products of superior quality. The MTR® process is based on Uhde Inventa-Fischer’s proprietary 2 Reactor technology which uses the patented ESPREE® and DISCAGE® reactors to obtain the desired high melt viscosities. In a next step the plant will be upgraded with a flakes recycle system (FTR) to reduce the CO2 - footprint further. Uhde Inventa-Fischer’s scope of supply and services included the licence, the basic and detail engineering, supply of all equipment and supervision of the erection and commissioning activities.