Shell Sells Mexican PET, Plans PTT Investment

Shell Chemical Co. (Houston) will sell its polyethylene terephthalate (PET) and polyethylene naphthalate (PEN) plastics business to Mossi Ghisolfi Group, an Italian company that operates through holding company M&G Finanziaria Industriale SpA.

BP Amoco Chemicals (Naperville, IL) recently received US Food & Drug Administration (FDA) approval to blend naphthalate monomers into PET resins used as food containers. Shell jointly filed an application with BP Amoco, its monomer supplier. This leaves M&G with permission to begin blending naphthalates into PET beer bottles,

Shell's PET business includes manufacturing plants in the United States, Italy, Mexico, and the United Kingdom. The companies, who did not reveal the deal's value, expect to conclude the transaction by the end of June.

The company also plans to build a Corterra polytrimethylene terephthalate (PTT) polymers plant in Altamira, the industrial port that served its PET plant in Tamaulipas. It expects to spend about $100 million the facility, which will have capacity for 115,000 mt/yr of PTT polymers for carpets and textiles.

Although PTT patents stretch back to 1941, the product was too expensive to manufacture until Shell commercialized its continuous ethylene oxide (EO) hydroformylation process.

By Alan S. Brown