La Seda de Barcelona (Barcelona / Spain; www.laseda.es) subsidiary Artlant PTA (Sines / Portugal; www.artlantpta.com) began commissioning its new 700,000 t/y PTA plant in Sines / Portugal in the last week of July. The plant’s foundation stone was laid in 2008, when the group was still known as Artenius Sines – see Plasteurope.com of 17.03.2008. Since then, the company has invested more than EUR 500m into making the project a reality.

Artlant says it is now testing all the installed equipment and systems, and hopes to start full-scale production by Q4 2011. PTA is a key feedstock for the manufacture of PET. According to Artlant, taking into account current market prices, the new plant could yield annual sales of more than EUR 600m. Altogether, the company plans to export 95% of output, mostly to western Europe but also to Africa, eastern Europe, the Middle East, India and Brazil.

Formerly known as Artenius Sines, Artlant PTA is a joint venture in which La Seda holds 41%, ECS Capital – Fundo de Recuperação (Lisbon / Portugal; www.ecs.pt) 29%, Caixa Capital (Lisbon / Portugal; www.caixabi.pt) 19%, while the remaining 11% are in the hands of InovCapital (Porto / Portugal; www.inovcapital.pt).