Turkey's polyester market and raw material import/export overview

On 6 February, a 7.8 magnitude earthquake struck in Turkey, which has so far led to numerous people being killed in Turkey and Syria. As Turkey has become one of the new growth areas for polyester capacity and output in recent years, the earthquake has therefore also brought a lot of questions about the polyester market related situation in the country from many people in the polyester industry.

By the end of 2022, the total local polyester capacity is around 2.5 million tons, mainly distributed in four regions: Adana, Gaziantep, Corlu, and Bursa. The provinces that are closer to the epicenter in these four regions are mainly Adana and Gaziantep, and these two provinces happen to be the two regions with the largest distribution of polyester capacity, accounting for 58% and 19% of their domestic polyester capacity respectively. That is to say, there is a polyester production capacity of 1.9 million tons/year near this area.

In terms of import volume, Turkey imported about 1.62 million tons of PTA from January to November, 2022 (estimated to be close to 1.8 million tons in the whole year). Coupled with a small amount of domestic self-supply, the annual PTA consumption is expected to be around 1.9 million tons. As for MEG, according to its customs statistics, the annual import volume in 2022 is 744,000 tons, of which the top three sources of imports are: the United States, Saudi Arabia, and Kuwait. The dependence on MEG imports is 100%.

Turkey's polyester capacity and output growth

Turkey basically has no new polyester capacity in 2022-2023, so its output remains relatively stable. It is predicted that its polyester output in 2022 will be at about 2.2-2.3 million tons.