After just five months of operations at its new manufacturing facility in the Salalah Free Zone, OCTAL Petrochemicals has substituted 90 per cent of PET resin imports into Oman, valued at nearly US$42 million a year.
OCTAL Chairman Sheikh Saad Suhail Bahwan said: “Omani companies can now buy from a world-class Omani supplier, reducing expenditure on expensive overseas imports and investing instead in Omani factories and jobs. This is a great advertisement for local manufacturing.”
Sales are set to increase further in June as customers use up their old inventories of PET and switch over to OCTAL, Sheikh Saad added. OCTAL produces PET resin for soft drinks, bottled water, and edible oil packaging, as well as PET sheet, the world’s fastest growing choice of material for clear rigid plastic packaging applications.
Opened in January 2009, OCTAL’s integrated PET resin and clear rigid sheet production facility was built at an initial cost of US$350 million. Its current production capacity of 300,000 m/t is set to increase to 800,000 m/t when a second phase of expansion is completed in 2011.
OCTAL secures US$296 million for next phase of expansion
OCTAL is on track to complete the second phase of its operational expansion this year following a new round of funding from six Middle Eastern banks. The privately owned, Oman-based manufacturer opened a 400,000 metric ton (m/t) PET resins and sheet packaging facility in the southeast port ... more
