A new plant manufacturing chemicals for the fibre glass, paint and surface coating industries is in the process of commissioning in the Jebel Ali Industrial Area - 1. Investments on the 20,000 tonne per annum plant are upwards of Dh10 million, according to a senior official.
The promoters of Polychem Resins International expect to attain a turnover of Dh65 to Dh70 million when the plant goes into full capacity production. The built up area is nearly 150,000 square feet.
"The overall regional demand for our productline - synthetic resins - is estimated at 200,000 tonnes per annum. Currently, a good portion of this demand is met by way of imports from India, the Far East and other Middle East states," said C. Chatterjee, president of PRI.
"Our plant is fully automated and we have brought in the latest technology. The existing capacity is big enough to make us a major player in the local and regional market."
The shareholders in the venture include Mohammed Abdulla Al Ghurair of the Dubai-headquartered Al Ghurair Group and a group of investors under the umbrella of Petron Engineering and Manufacturing, an industrial contracting firm with interests in Dubai and India. The other shareholders are R.S. Ambekar, A. Bhattarcharya and P.J Nair.
The UPR (for unsaturated polyester resin) technology at the plant is sourced from the $2 billion Lonza Group, the Swiss based chemicals conglomerate.
"In future, we could raise the capacity to around 30,000 tonnes per annum in the short term if we feel there is sufficient demand coming from the markets," added Chatterjee. "Over the longer term, it could even go up by 100 per cent of the existing capacity.
"The plant can produce a range of synthetic resins with selling prices ranging from $800 per tonne to $2,000 per tonne."
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