PTT and Mitsubishi Chemical Corp are conducting a feasibility study on coinvesting in both upstream and downstream bioplastics plants in Thailand.
"It is the global trend to use bioplastics instead of fuelbased plastic products. We believe that once the global economy rebounds, demand will grow sharply," Pratya Pinyawat, chairman for the petro¬leum business at PTT, said yester¬day.
Hiroaki Ishizuka, managing executive officer for petrochemicals at MCC, said the company plans to form a joint venture with PTT to build a plant to make either polylactic acid (PLA) or polybutylenes succinate (PBS), the key compounds of bioplastic products. The downstream plant is expected to start running by 2015.
MCC is also interested in joining with PTT in setting up an upstream plant to produce compounds used for producing PLA or PBS, so that the joint venture can make both upstream and downstream bioplastics.
"We've not finalised either the capital budget or total production capacity. But I can say that it will need huge investment," he said.
MCC has been operating in the bioplastics field in Japan for some 10 years. Thailand will be MCC's first location outside Japan for that business, he said.
The Thai plants would be mainly exportoriented, targeting Asian countries, including China, because demand for bioplastics here is very low, he said.
MCC chose Thailand for its sec¬ond base because raw materials for bioplastics production - both tapioca and sugarcane -were plentiful, and support from the Thai government was strong.
That would make production costs here competitive with other countries.
Pratya said the first plant for either PLA or PBS would have an annual production capacity of 10,00020,000 tonnes. PTT and MCC are analysing the appropriate volume of output.
PTT is testing domestic market demand for bioplastics by importing both PLA and PBS from Japan to sell to its customers.
Piyabutr Cholvijarn, a member of the National Innovation Agency's board of directors, said PTT and MCC were the most active compa¬nies in bioplastics, followed by Siam Cement Group.
Since few companies are interested in entering that business in Thailand, the government should offer incentives to the private sector such as a green tax for companies whose operation can reduce environmental problems such as carbon emissions, he said.
The NIA yesterday teamed up with the Department of National Parks, Wildlife and Plant Conservation, PTT and MCC to screen and ferment organic wastes on Samed to produce biofertiliser in order to reduce waste on the island.
PTT and MCC will support the budget of Bt4 million to construct a waste fermentation plant on Samed.
Wantanee Chongkum, director of NIA's Innovation Culture Promotion Department, said Thailand produces about 1 million tonnes of plastic waste per year. If it could ferment organic waste, it could produce 6 million tonnes of fertiliser per year, worth around Bt60 billion.