Bangkok--30 Apr--Indorama
Indorama Polymers Plc, the world’s second largest PET producer, said that it expects to continue to see its revenues and volumes rising tremendously during this year with the first quarter of this year likely to show record growth thanks to the declining costs and rising demand for its products.
“Over the past 3 years your company has managed to see its revenues and volumes grow by 50% or more and there are no reasons why we should not witness similar growth this year and in the future,” Aloke Lohia, chairman of the executive committee of IRP told his shareholders when he was asked about the prospects of the country’s future.
Mr. Lohia added that with the coming on stream of AlphaPET in the United States by June this year and the expected production restart of its newly acquired subsidiary Tuntex Plc would help propel the company to becoming the world’s largest PET polymer producer.
IRP’s hopes that its $175 million AlphaPET would become its new driver for sales growth as the new plant would be among the lowest cost producer in the North America where the industry has been undergoing a major consolidation as some of the high cost producers are shutting their plants.
Mr. Lohia says that with the addition of the 432,000 tonnes per year in new capacity, AlphaPET would help bring Indorama’s overall production capacity to 1.39 million tonnes per year. AlphaPET is expected to start its first 216,000 tonnes by late June or early July, while the second line with 216,000 tonnes per annum capacity is expected to start operations in August this year.
He said that if the company’s first quarter growth was in any way an indicator for the year, it would be an outstanding year for the firm.
“During the first quarter we have lowered the prices of our products in line with the declining feedstock cost and other costs such as utilities, while demand for the product has seen a sharp increase,” he said while stressing that the company continued to see its margins remain intact.
Demand for goods were so strong that IRP has had to run its production capacity at 100% utilization rates during the first quarter of the year.
IRP’s chief executive officer, Dilip Kumar Agarwal, meanwhile said that the firm views that this year the demand for PET products are likely to continue to rise at the same levels as those seen during last year and any adjustment to prices have been able to be passed on to the customers.
He said that IRP has managed to increase its market share in the United States over the past couple of months with the year-on-year growth for the first quarter rising by a staggering 20% despite the economic downturn.
The reason for the sharp rise in the sales volume he said was the ability of IRP to continue to remain one of the most cost competitive companies in the North American market.
Mr. Agarwal said that company would soon announce the first quarter results which would likely see sales and revenues of the firm witnessing a marked increase from those seen during the same period last year.