M&G Selects Corpus Christi for Third North American Resin Plant

By Camelia Bulea, Associate Editor

The town of Corpus Christi achieved a win when M&G Polymer announced it will be the site for the company’s third North American resin plant. Initially, M&G considered towns in Louisiana and Mississippi, but Corpus Christi won out due to its exceptional highway, deep-water and rail access.

The investment–M&G’s largest ever–is expected to create approximately 250 jobs and generate hundreds of millions of dollars in capital investment. The plant will have capacity to make 2.2 billion pounds of polyethylene terephthalate, or PET, and 2.6 billion pounds of purified terephthalic acid, or PTA, resin annually. The period needed to build the plant is estimated at about 30 months.

But the town of Corpus Christi is not the sole winner from this investment; M&G Group will receive a series of incentives, including an enterprise designation from the Texas Enterprise Zone Program, as well as training funds.

Originally from Italy, M&G International is the largest producer of PET resin–used worldwide to package food, beverage and personal care products–with an annual production capacity of approximately 1.6 million tons. Demand for the product is high, given that many PET plants were closed or sold in recent years.

Chief Executive magazine ranked Texas the top state for business for the seventh year in a row, based on an annual survey of more than 500 CEOs across the country.