HOUSTON — January 11, 2013 — The M&G Group ("M&G"), one of the three leading producers in the Americas of PET for packaging applications, announced today that it has signed a US$ 1 billion engineering, procurement and construction contract ("EPC Contract") with Sinopec Engineering (Group) Co., Ltd. ("SEG") for the turnkey construction in Corpus Christi (Texas, US) of the world's largest single line PET plant with a capacity of 1 million tons per year (2.2 billion pounds), integrated with the largest western world's single line PTA plant with a capacity of 1.2 million tons per year (2.6 billion pounds).
M&G's engineering arms, Chemtex Global S.a r.l. and M&G Finanziaria S.r.l., will provide critical equipment and services on a subcontracting basis to turnkey contractor SEG.
The completion of construction of the plants, including the time required to obtain necessary permits, is expected to occur within 36 months.
Industrial and Commercial Bank of China ("ICBC", the world's largest bank by market capitalization) and Banco Inbursa (a leading Mexican bank) are expected to provide the bank financing for the project.
M&G will be the sole owner of the plants and solely responsible for their operation.
"This is the largest PET investment ever in the western world and probably one of the largest investments recently announced in the US in the private sector. It is the celebration of excellence. It combines the excellence of the Corpus Christi (Texas, US) site, the excellence of state of the art technologies, and the excellence of geographical heterogeneous project participants in their respective fields of competence being production of PET/PTA, engineering and construction of chemical plants or banking and financials services. It shows that good projects attract the very best even in the current economic downturn. I am very proud of this achievement," said Marco Ghisolfi, CEO of M&G's Polymers Business Unit.
"The awarding of this important contract to SEG is a big milestone for entering the North America EPC market, which is a part of SEG business strategy to diversify from coal chemicals to polymers," said Yan Shaochun, President & CEO of SINOPEC Engineering Group.
