PETpla.net Insider 09 / 2016

MATERIAL / RECYCLING 12 PET planet insider Vol. 17 No. 09/16 www.petpla.net SPONSORS The China Road Show Far Eastern Industries in China, part 1 May 30, 2016 We met: Mr S.Y. Lai, Executive President Mr C.J. Lee, PH.D., Sino Belgium Beer and Mr Shih-Fong Lee, bottleplant Manager Far Eastern Industries was founded in 1949 in Taiwan, and is active in many industries. One area is the production of PET, and its precursor and end products. With its 1.3 mil- lion tonnes worldwide (total 26mt), it occupies 5 th place among bottle grade manufactures. By 2018, production is expected to rise to 1.6mt. The portfolio is partly made up of faster reheat resin, which saves up to 20% of energy when heating up the preforms, or stretch blow machines, which have an oven that is slightly too short for 2 or 2.5l bottles, which allow it to reach full capacity. In China, they are selling PET material and preforms for multina- tional companies such as Coca Cola. For this purpose, they have set up a preform plant in Suzhou with five Husky-HyPET- machines. On asking S.Y. Lai, Executive President, about whether customers start asking ques- tions if the raw mate- rial producer also manufactures his customers’ prod- ucts, I received the answer: “When we started operating in China, it was mainly to serve our interna- tional brands better in this area, such as Coca Cola and Pocari, so in 2011 we decided to install the first two preform machines. That this was the right path to take is evidenced by the fact that we have five lines running today, three of which boast 96-cavity tools, and two with 144- cavity tools.” The injection moulding hall is hermetically sealed; we could only enter the pro- duction site through a complex disinfec- tion area. The injec- tion moulding machines are separated by a wall for packing the preforms; here they fall into the octabins. The preforms are not shaken, as cus- tomers do not want this. Altogether, 73,000t of the PET production go into their own preform plants in China, Taiwan, and Malaysia. By 2018, it will be 106,000t. In terms of growth markets, Lai specifically has Japan in his sights: “We have been delivering preforms for various applications to Japan for many years. I think we will set ourselves up even better there in the future.” He is expecting another disproportionate growth area in the production of APET for sheets. “Today we produce 115,000t of PET sheets for packaging; I believe in 2018 it will be 200,000t. Many companies are moving away from PVC foil and towards PET. In addition, the demand is growing, especially for food packag- ing.” For the future, Lai is looking at an inexpensive mono-material that better meets all requirements for barrier coat- ings than the previous material, in par- ticular regarding UV protection, oxygen barrier and CO 2 impermeability. Vertical integration at Far Eastern is by no means complete yet. From the production of MEG and PTA to the production of PET and preforms, an internal brewery has been added with its own PET bottle production. More on this in part 2, page 34. www.feg.cn Outside of China, the Taiwan- ese also produce rPET on a Bühler machine (bottle grade). At the moment they produce 90,000t/a, in 2018 it is expected to be 125,000t.