A new polyester plant is to be built in a Russian textile production hub to overcome a shortage of domestic technical textile and nonwovens raw materials and, ideally, launch the export of those materials to the EU market.
The Russian federal government, together with the Ivanovo regional government (oblast), north-east of Moscow, are now building an Ivanovo Polyester Complex, which they hope will become a major supplier of raw materials once it starts operations in early 2019.
The new plant, which will be owned and operated by JSC Polyester Plant Ivanovo, is due to use monoethylene glycol, which is produced entirely in Russia, as well as terephthalic acid, that will be mostly imported from China.
Sergey Nikolaev, CEO of JSC Polyester Plant Ivanovo, who will head the operation of the Ivanovo Polyester Complex, believes the commissioning of the plant will not only solve the problem of a shortage of raw materials in the domestic technical textile market, but also bring about the start of exports, specifically to the EU member states.
Nikolaev says: “In recent years, Asian imports of man-made fibres to the EU market have significantly increased, which is mainly due to the increase in demand for technical textiles in the European market. At the same time, according to investors’ plans, the production of the Ivanovo plant will be able to successfully compete with Asian imports in the EU market, which is mainly due to their good quality and competitive prices, that will be generally lower for those products, which are produced within the EU or imported from Asian states.”
According to the Russian ministry of industry and trade, Russian technical textile producers continue to be heavily dependent on supplies of raw materials from abroad. According to ministry data, the share of imports of polyester fibres in the overall Russian fibres market is currently estimated at 74%, while the share of polypropylene imports stands at 49%.
Russia also currently has no viscose production, continuing to meet 100% of its needs with imports. Finally, the share of polyamide imports to the country varies between 85-88% of the total market and has significantly increased in recent years.
The new plant will have the capacity to produce up to 200,000 tonnes of polyester fibre and PET-granulate per year and will create more than 550 jobs. According to Nadezhda Samoylenko, the first vice-president of the Russian union of entrepreneurs of textile and light industry, which unites Russian leading textile and technical textile producers, the newly established plant will satisfy the needs of many Russian nonwovens and technical textiles industries in terms of raw materials. She agrees there will be excess capacity, which could be exported.
According to ministry of industry and trade predictions, by the end of 2018 the Russian technical textile industry could grow in output by 40% compared to 2016, which reveals a high potential for import substitution, justifying the need to build the plant. According to Nikolaev, capital investments in the building of the plant will amount to €354m, (US$438m) of which €287m (US$356m) will be allocated to foreign contractors.
Source: www.wtin.com