Lurgi Zimmer (Frankfurt / Germany; www.lurgi.com) has been awarded a contract to build a PBT plant for Xinjiang Blue Ridge Tunhe Chemical Industry Company (Changji City / China; www.tunhegm.com.cn). Start-up of the plant in Xinjiang Province is scheduled for 2009. It will produce PBT chips from PTA and butanediol (BDO) using a continuous polycondensation process with THF recovery. Details of capacity and order value have not been disclosed.

Lurgi Zimmer will supply the technology, engineering and supervisory services as well as procuring the equipment. The German engineering firm is regarded as the leader in polyester polycondensation technology and says that this is the fifth Chinese PBT plant to use its process.