Thailand's Indorama Ventures said Nov. 30 it bought a PET resin plant in India, calling it a “missing piece” of its Asian footprint and banking on anticipated growth from very low levels of plastic use there.
Bangkok-based Indorama Ventures Public Co. Ltd. said it bought Micro Polypet Private Ltd., the sole manufacturer of PET resin in North India with an estimated 12 percent of the country's market share.
“India has been the missing piece of our Asian market access,” said CEO Aloke Lohia, noting that the company has been established in China and Indonesia, Asia's most populous and third-most populous countries.
Micro Polypet has a plant with 476 million pounds of capacity in Panipat, near Delhi. Terms were not disclosed.
“This is a unique opportunity for us to establish a foothold in one of the world's fastest-growing developing economies,” he said, in a statement. “The acquisition strategically extends our footprint and scale and enhances our relationship with the world's fast moving consumer goods brands, all of who have their eye on this huge consumer market.”
He said India uses 1.3 pounds of PET per person annually, compared with 5.7 pounds in China and 24 pounds in the United States. But the company said PET consumption in India is growing 20 percent a year from that low base.
It said the average Indian drinks three liters of soft drinks a year, compared with 90 liters in the United States, and that PET has only a 30 percent share of India's beverage market.
Indorama said the Micro Polypet plant uses melt-to-resin technology that Indorama also uses at a plant in Alabama.