DuPont emerges as polyester technology provider
T
he structure of DuPont's polyester enterprise is starting to take shape after two years of poor market conditions, a pivotal acquisition from ICI, and the formation of large regional joint ventures for many pieces of its business. DuPont says these events have positioned it at the hub of an improved polyester organization, linking together through technology a network of suppliers that sell a cornucopia of products derived from polyethylene terephthalate (PET). This may come as little surprise. DuPont has been promising groundbreaking polyester technologies for years. The company heralded the 1997 acquisition of ICI's polyester business as a move that would give it capabilities that complement its own. DuPont even advertised a promising fermentation route to 1,3-propanediol—the diol intermediate used in polytrimethylene terephthalate—and announced breakthroughs in that technology last year. The new joint ventures, in turn, give DuPont holdings in polyester businesses that generate a total of $5 billion in annual sales, including the equity interest of its partners, a sturdier platform to launch technologies compared with the roughly $3 billion in sales the company had two years ago. In January, DuPont bundled two more of its polyester businesses into partnerships. It teamed up with Turkish conglomerate Haci Omer Sabanci to form DuPontSA, a polyester fibers, resins, and intermediates company with $1 billion in annual revenues. It
also formed DuPontTeijinFilms, a global polyester film manufacturer that generates about $1.4 billion in sales. Technology for that partnership, however, is separate from the rest of the DuPont polyester enterprise. In addition, DuPont is currently in discussions with a potential partner for its North American polyesterfilamentbusiness. 'What is common to these joint ventures is that DuPont becomes the technology developer and supplier globally to all of them, whether they be in the Americas, Europe, or Asia," says Craig F. Binetti, vice president and general manager of DuPont polyester resins and intermediates. "It allows us to practice our technology, develop it more, and leverage it across a number of different entities and businesses." Binetti oversees many of the technologies that DuPont has been developing. One of these capabilities is NG-3, which DuPont has billed as the first PET process technology specifically designed for the manufacture of packaging resin. In most PET processes, an acid, such as terephthalic acid or dimethyl terephthalate, is polymerized with ethylene glycol in the melt phase. The lower molecular weight product that is produced is often used to make fibers and other products. To manufacture higher molecular weight PET packaging resin, the intermediate made in the melt phase is then polymerized further in the solid state. In contrast, DuPont's NG-3 process, although it does not skip the melt-phase step, does most
DuPont's technology is available to most of its polyester ventures and units DuPontTeijinFilms 3 Global Films
DuPont Akra * Americas Staple Fibers i
Americas Filament
Americas Fiberfill
D u P o n t Polyester Enterprise DuPont Polyester Technologies
Polyester Asia, including DuPont Far Eastern Petrochemical Co. and DuPont Suzhou Polyester Co.
/ Americas Resins & Intermediates a R&D is separate from DuPont.
DuPontSA Polyester Greater Europe
of the polymerization in the solid state. NG-3 turns a six-stage polymerization process into a four-stage one. DuPont claims a number of advantages from this ability. Less capital is needed to produce every pound of resin. And because the process doesn't rely as heavily on the melt phase, it circumvents some of the polymer degradation problems associated with the melt phase, leading to purer product. After operating a pilot plant in Old Hickory, Tenn., DuPont isfinallyintroducing the technology, which cannot be retrofitted into plants. Instead of building the first NG-3 PET plant for its own use, DuPont intends to make the process available to licensees through a technology alliance between DuPont Polyester Technologies—which DuPont formed last year to distribute technology throughout its polyester enterprise—and Fluor Daniel, a subsidiary of Aliso Viejo, Calif.-based Fluor Corp. The companies envision building NG-3 PET plants with annual capacities of more than 200,000 metric tons, larger than most of the PET plants currently being built. In addition, DuPont and Fluor are targeting high-growth Asian markets. According to Binetti, DuPont has shied away from building its own plant because PET margins haven't risen to levels that warrant constructing a new plant. In addition, the company is planning a low-cost upgrade that will boost capacity at its Cedar Creek, N.C., PET plant by 50% to 150,000 metric tons per year in the second quarter of 2001. "The expansion will probably cost about a third of what is traditionally required," Binetti says. Still, Binetti won't rule out that DuPont or an affiliate might build the first NG-3 plants. "Because we are a much bigger enterprise with joint-venture partners than we were when everything was 100% DuPont, we probably have more of an opportunity today to build NG-3 plants than we had two years ago," he says. DuPont is also tweaking the purified terephthalic acid (PTA) technology that it acquiredfromICI at a plant in Taiwan. 'That plant is setting a record every single day in either production or cost performance," he says, noting that DuPont has made a few changes to improve the process further. "When we take these technologies—PTA and NG-3—and put them together, we think we have the next generation of polyester technology coming out of the pipeline." Alex Tullo MARCH 6, 2000 C&EN
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