By Frank Esposito
SENIOR STAFF REPORTER
Published: September 19, 2014 10:27 am ET
Updated: September 19, 2014 11:10 am ET
Image By: British Petroleum plc
British Petroleum plc's Cooper River plant.
British Petroleum plc may restart its fire-damaged purified terephthalic acid (PTA) feedstock unit in South Carolina in late October or early November, but not at full rates.
A source close to BP said that those dates are the firm’s “best estimate” of a restart date for the PTA unit, which is at BP’s site in Cooper River, S.C. PTA is used as a feedstock to make PET resin. The outage played a role in PET bottle resin prices increasing by 2 cents per pound in August, when market watchers had expected a slight decrease.
The unit was shut down on Aug. 9 after a fire damaged a compressor building at the site. No one was injured by the fire, which was extinguished in less than an hour. No cause for the fire has been identified.
BP’s other PTA unit at the site continues to operate. The site has a combined total PTA production capacity of about 1.6 billion pounds per year. | 
