UPDATED — PET bottle resin markets will be affected by a July 15 fire at a feedstocks plant operated by Alpek SAB de CV in Altamira, Mexico.
The fire was at one of the site's two purified terephthalic acid units. That unit has annual production capacity of more than 1 billion pounds, according to the Wood Mackenzie consulting firm in Houston.
"The situation was controlled promptly by internal and external emergency response teams with no reported injuries," the Monterrey, Mexico-based company said in a prepared statement. "Alpek is working to mitigate the impact of the temporary disruption caused by this incident. A complete assessment of the required repairs is in progress."
The company added that it has started an internal investigation to determine the cause of the incident "and establish the applicable corrective measures."
Marshall added in the Wood Mackenzie report that Alpek's PTA plants at Altamira supply PTA to the adjacent M&G Mexico PET resin plant, which is now operated by Alpek and DAK Americas.
"Although the extent of the damage is unknown at this time, videos and pictures from the site indicate significant damage which may keep at least one plant off line for an extended period of time," Wood Mackenzie PET head Phil Marshall said in the report. "This outage is likely to negatively impact PET resin production in the Americas region as well as in Europe."
The PTA unit affected by the fire also supplies DAK Americas' PET resin plants at Pearl River, Miss., as well as exports to various South American and European polyester producers.
"This event comes at a particularly critical time for the Americas and European PET resin markets, as both regions have been experiencing critically tight PET resin supply due to both PET resin and PTA plant outages," Marshall said.
