China’s Purified Terephthalic Acid (PTA) plant capacity is forecasted to grow at a compound annual growth rate (CAGR) of 3.9% from 43.850 million tonnes per annum (mtpa) in 2017 to 53.150 mtpa in 2022, according to GlobalData, a leading data and analytics company.

The company’s report: ‘Purified Terephthalic Acid (PTA) Industry Outlook in China to 2022 – Market Size, Company Share, Price Trends, Capacity Forecasts of All Active and Planned Plants’ reveals that some of the upcoming new-build and expansion projects, ‘Fujian Billion Petrochemical Fujian Purified Terephthalic Acid (PTA) Plant’, ‘Hengli Petrochemical Dalian Purified Terephthalic Acid (PTA) Plant’, ‘Dushan Energy Pinghu Purified Terephthalic Acid (PTA) Plant’, ‘Ningxia Baota Petrochemical Group Yinchuan Purified Terephthalic Acid (PTA) Plant’ and ‘Henan Longyu Coal Chemical Luoyang Purified Terephthalic Acid (PTA) Plant’ with a capacity of 2.500 mtpa, 2.500 mtpa, 2.200 mtpa, 1.200 mtpa and 0.900 mtpa, respectively are expected to commence their production by 2022.

The largest PTA plants in China in 2017 were ‘Hengli Petrochemical Dalian Purified Terephthalic Acid (PTA) Plant’, ‘Xianglu Petrochemicals Zhangzhou Purified Terephthalic Acid (PTA) Plant’, ‘Yisheng Dahua Petrochemical Company Dalian Purified Terephthalic Acid (PTA) Plant 2’, ‘Yisheng Dahua Petrochemical Company Dalian Purified Terephthalic Acid (PTA) Plant 1’ and ‘China Prosperity (Jiangyin) Petrochemical Company Nanjing Purified Terephthalic Acid (PTA) Plant 2’.

Vinuthna Bidar, Oil & Gas Analyst at GlobalData, says: “China is set to have large capacity additions, aimed at the country’s increasing polyester demand and reducing the dependency on imports.”

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The major companies in the country are ‘Hengli Petrochemical (Dalian) Co Ltd’, ‘Xianglu Petrochemicals Co Ltd’, ‘Zhejiang Hengyi Group Co Ltd’, ‘Zhejiang Rongsheng Holding Group Co Ltd’ and ‘China Petrochemical Corp’. In 2017, these companies combined accounted for 59.7% of the PTA capacity in China.

The main sectors that consume PTA in China are Polyester Fibre and Polyethylene Terephthalate (PET). In 2017, these sectors accounted for almost 93.7% of the PTA demand in China.

The average price of PTA is expected to grow at a CAGR of 2.3% from US$756.0/tonne in 2017 to US$846.6/tonne in 2022.

During 2008 to 2017, China was a net importer of PTA. According to GlobalData forecasts, imports as percentage of demand is expected to remain the same at 1.7% from 2017 to 2022.