State petroleum firm Oman Oil and refiner Orpic will not proceed with plans to build a purified terephthalic acid (PTA) plant within the Sohar Industrial Port, following a review of the feasibility of the project. The plant was to have production capacity of 1.1mn t/y, taking paraxylene feedstock from Orpic’s 1.02mn t/y aromatics plant at Sohar.
PTA is used as a feedstock in manufacturing polyethylene terephthalate (PET), widely used in manufacturing fibers and packaging. The Ompet joint venture of Oman Oil (50%), Korea’s LG (30%) and Oman’s Takamul Investment (20%) originally proposed to build the PTA plant with a 500,000 t/y PET plant alongside (MEES, 27 November 2015). The PTA cancellation suggests the PET project has also been canned. (CONTINUED - 119 WORDS)