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| August 20, 1997 |
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| Mitsubishi Chemical Corp. Highlights Indian
PTA Project, Polyester Business Strategy |
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Mitsubishi Chemical Corp. (Head office: Chiyoda-ku, Tokyo; President:Akira Miura)
has finalized plans for its pure terephthalic acid (PTA) project in India, initially
announced on March 12, 1997, and is pleased to outline these plans in the following
to all concerned parties.
| 1. Product name: |
Pure terephthalic acid (PTA) |
| 2. Production capacity: |
350,000 tonnes/yr |
| 3. Process technology: |
Mitsubishi Chemical Corp. |
| 4. Local company name: |
MCC PTA INDIA Corporation Private Limited (tentative) |
| 5. Capital: |
US$150 mil. (about 17 bil. yen) |
| 6. Investors in local company: |
Mitsubishi Chemical Corp. 58%
WBIDC(*) 5%
Mitsubishi Corp. 9%
Nissho Iwai Corp. 8%
Tomen Corp. 5%
Sumikin Trading 2%
Local investors, etc. 13%
(*) West Bengal Industrial Development Corporation Limited |
| 7. Head office: |
Calcutta, West Bengal State |
| 8. Plant: |
Haldia Industrial Estate, West Bengal State |
| 9. Start of construction: |
September 1997 (scheduled) |
| 10. Completion: |
Late 1999 (scheduled) |
| 11. Engineering: |
Mitsubishi Heavy Industries |
| 12. Overall investment: |
About $380 million (about 42 billion yen) |
| 13. Employees: |
About 600 (48 Japanese employees at peak) |
Our PTA business already possesses three production bases, in Japan (Kurosaki,
Matsuyama), South Korea (Samnam Petrochemical), and Indonesia (Bakrie Kasei),
and a fourth will emerge by way of the Indian project. We are of the opinion that
the key to cost competitiveness is to possess production bases located in the
regions where demand exists, and we are developing our businesses in each demand
sphere focusing on each of our production bases. Through this, we are of the belief
that we will establish ourselves as one of the world's leading PTA companies,
not only in terms or process technology, but also in terms of scale.
Simultaneously, our PTA production technology is now in the final stages of cost
reduction, and in particular in our one-stage oxidation process, additional cost
savings of 10% have been achieved over existing processes, and we are now in the
position to license the technology globally for world-scale projects. At the present
time, we are actually in the negotiation process for a number of process licenses.
In the field of downstream polyester, including our capacities at Echizen Polymer
(a joint venture with Kanebo), at Japan Unipet (a joint venture with Toyobo) and
at Indonesia's Bakrie Kasei, we now possess polyester polymerization capacity
of about 200,000 tonnes/yr. We are concentrating on strengthening our polyester
resin business for bottle and film applications. In the resin business for bottles,
we plan to respond to the rapidly growing demand for PET bottles by expanding
our existing group capacity of 130,000 tonnes/yr through further expansions and
acquisitions to over 200,000 tonnes/yr by the end of this century, and in doing
so, we aim to become Asia's leading PET supplier.
While maintaining individual strategies and synergies for the polyester raw materials
PTA and EG (ethylene glycol), we, only one manufacturer all over the world who
have all of main raw materials for the three major synthetic fibers, plan to actively
expand downstream, and in the process establish our position as one of the world's
leading polyester makers.
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