BP confirmed on 17th February that it is proceeding with its project for a major increase in purified terephthalic acid (PTA) production capacity at the BP Zhuhai Chemical Company Limited (BP Zhuhai) site in Guangdong Province, China, a joint venture between BP and Zhuhai Port Co., Ltd. (formerly named Fu Hua Group) and also announced that it is planning to build a new world scale PTA plant at the same site.
The planned debottleneck at Zhuhai will increase capacity by more than 200 000 tpy from its second unit (Z2), making the total PTA production capacity of the Zhuhai site some 1.7 million tpy.
BP has completed engineering design work for the Z2 debottleneck and expects the expansion to be fully operational in 1Q2012.