JBF Industries Resumes PET Production at Geel in Belgium

According to CCGroup and local media sources in Italy, Indian PET producer JBF Industries has restarted its plant in Geel, Belgium after receiving financial support from MB Barter & Trading on October 28-29. The PET plant has a production capacity of 432,000 tons/year.

Although there were no official announcements from the producer yet, some sources reported they have already started to give offers for November shortly after resuming operations.

“In the light of the recent developments, we started to commercialize the 80% of the output for November. The plant is still in the ownership of JBF,” confirmed the spokesperson from MB Barter. MB Barter is already known to be working on BP’s PTA, PX plant in Geel as a financial and business partner.

Previously, UAE-based PET producer JBF RAK, a subsidiary of India-based JBF Industries, was in talks to sell its facility in Geel in an attempt to restructure its debts.

JBF is one of the top 10 producers of PET (polyethylene terephthalate) chips and BOPET (biaxially-oriented polyethylene terephthalate), which is stretched out of PET, films globally.

Uncertainty regarding the sustainability of the producer’s activities in Europe had sent PET prices multi-year highs amid growing supply concerns in August and early September.