Expansions: BASF breaks ground on 500 kt-PE plant in China; Alpla invests in EUR60 mn PET recycling plant in South Africa

German chemicals firm BASF has broken ground on a polyethylene (PE) plant at its site in Zhanjiang, China. The new plant with a capacity of 500,000 tonnes/year of PE will serve the fast-growing demand in China. The plant is scheduled to start up in 2025.

“China's demand for PE has experienced rapid growth and is going to outpace the rest of the world,” said Bir Darbar Mehta, Senior Vice President of Petrochemicals Asia Pacific at BASF. “With the groundbreaking ceremony, BASF will enter the PE market in China via a competitive production footprint in its fully integrated production site in Zhanjiang, catering to our customers in the consumer goods, packaging, construction and transportation industries.”

“Strategically located close to our customers, the Zhanjiang Verbund site is fully backward integrated to provide them with high quality and reliable PE products for a wide range of durable applications, including pipes, specialty films and blow molded parts for household and industrial chemical containers, especially in the South China market,” said Bejoy Chandran, Vice President of Basic Business Management & China Sales Management, Petrochemicals Asia Pacific at BASF.

Polyethylene is a light, versatile thermoplastic polymer produced from ethylene. It is used in a wide range of applications from heavy-duty storage tanks and pipelines to flexible packaging and films.

In other news, packaging and recycling specialist Alpla is building a recycling plant in the South African coastal town of Ballito, north of Durban. The plant, with an output of 35,000 tonnes of recycled PET material, marks the company’s entry into the African recycling market. Construction will start in summer 2023 and completion is planned for autumn 2024. In total, Alpla says it is investing around EUR60 million in the facility.

The Alpla Group says it is strengthening its commitment in southern Africa. After opening its new headquarters in Lanseria near Johannesburg in autumn 2022, the internationally active company is now announcing the construction of its first own recycling plant in South Africa. By autumn 2024, a modern plant for recycling used PET bottles will be built on a 90,000-sq-m site in Ballito near Durban in the province of KwaZulu Natal. It is the first investment in a food-grade PET recycling facility in South Africa’s second largest province by population and a key investment for the region. In future, almost 60,000 tonnes/year of PET bottles will be recycled and 35,000 tonnes of mechanically recycled rPET flakes and pellets will be produced from them, the majority of which Alpla will process to produce its own bottles.

The new plant will increase the annual production capacity of all Alpla recycling companies and cooperations to around 238,000 tonnes for rPET (recycled PET) and 74,000 tonnes for rHDPE (recycled HDPE).

The market for high-quality products made from recycled materials is growing not only in Europe, Asia, and North and South America, but also in the south of the African continent. In South Africa, the increasing demand is accompanied by the gradual expansion of nationwide collection systems.

In addition, for the realisation of the recycling plant, Alpla adds it has jointly decided to approach the investment with a local partner.

Alpla is represented at a total of seven locations in South Africa, Mauritius and Angola in the sub-Saharan region on the continent, where it employs more than 1,000 people. In mid October 2022, the region’s new manufacturing headquarters was inaugurated in Lanseria near Johannesburg. Prior to this, a second production plant for PET preforms was opened in Angola’s capital Luanda.

It adds it is planning further investments in southern Africa in the coming years. ‘‘Regional anchoring and global know-how create the basis for strong partnerships and trust. With high-quality packaging solutions made from recycled materials, we can support our customers in meeting their sustainability goals and offer everything from a single source in the future,‘ says Javier Delgado, Alpla Regional Managing Director Africa, Middle East and Turkey. 

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