Artenius Purified Terephthalic Acid Facility, Portugal

Key Data

Artensa (Artenius) (Produção e Comercialização de ácido Tereftálico Purificado e Produtos Conexos), a Spanish subsidiary of La Seda de Barcelona (LSB), has set up a new purified terephthalic acid (PTA) plant in Sines, Portugal.

Sines already has one of the largest industrial parks in Portugal, and the occupants include Sines Power Plant (Electricidade de Portugal), Petrogal Sines (National Petrochemical Refinery) and Repsol (Polymer Refinery).

The new plant has been designed to produce around 700,000t/y of PTA, making it one of the largest plants of its kind in Europe.

At the current global PTA prices, the plant will generate €600m in revenues at normal production levels.

Approximately 95% of the production will be exported.

As of June 2011, test runs were being carried out for commissioning of the plant.

Production is expected to commence in the last quarter of 2011.

After commissioning the plant is expected to generate 400 direct and indirect jobs.

Design and construction of Artenius' Purified Terephthalic Acid Facility

Construction of the plant began at the end of 2007 and was completed by the end of 2010.

The complex consists of the production facility, raw material and finished product silos, pipe work, wastewater treatment plant and administrative and logistics areas.

Owners / financing

"After commissioning the plant is expected to generate 400 direct and indirect jobs."

The plant has been constructed with an EU grant aid since it was a significant employer in the Coastal Alentejo region of Portugal. In July 2007 it was reported that the European commission had provided €99.29m in investment aid (soft loan and corporate tax relief) for the new PTA plant. The final amount of the investment for the plant had crossed over €500m.

The project has been financed by own resources of the company to the tune of €108.11m, by bank financing containing no state aid element €213.55m and by a soft loan containing state aid €38.82m; the total state aid has been more than €99.29m.

Therefore, the contribution by the beneficiary exceeded 25% of the eligible costs, making it eligible for grant aid under article 88(3)(a) of the EC Treaty.

In January 2010, LSB announced a capital increase plan as part of a major restructuring programme for the company. LSB had been facing financial difficulties which led to suspension of construction of the plant for several months. The capital increase programme was completed in September 2010.

As part of the plan, a new capital structure was created for Artenius Sines. LSB reduced its stake in the company to 41% and three investment funds acquired the remaining stake.

The ownership structure of Artenius Sines now includes LSB (41%), ECS Capital through Fundo Recuperação (29%), Caixa Capital (19%) and InovCapital (11%).

Contractors involved in Artenius' Purified Terephthalic Acid Facility

In October 2007 Aker Kvaerner was awarded a £20m (€30m) contract for the engineering, procurement and construction management of the plant.

"The final amount of investment for the plant came to €360.5m."

The detailed engineering of the plant was provided by Aker Kvaerner India of Mumbai.

Technoedif of Portugal as a subcontractor was responsible for the engineering support and construction management of the new plant.

Veolia Environnement was contracted to provide environmental services for the plant.

Products

PTA is also known as 1,4-benzenedicarboxylic acid, and it has the chemical formula C6H4(COOH)2.

The PTA will be used for the production of polyester, PET resin for packaging, PET films, powder coating resins and synthetic fibres.

The Artenius plant in Portugal will produce purified terephthalic acid (PTA).

The PTA plant will be based in Sines in Portugal where there is already a large industrial park.

Much of the PTA from the Artenius plant will go to polyethylene terephthalate (PET) production, including films and resins.