La Seda de Barcelona (LSB; Spain; www.laseda.es) has awarded the project of environmental services for the industrial plant Artenius Sines, a subsidiary of the Spanish multinational located in Portuguese city of Sines, to the French company Veolia Environnement (www.veolia.com). The agreement specifies the provision of services for a period of 15 years. Veolia Environnement, the global leader in environmental services, will construct the installations required for the supply of services to the Portuguese plant: steam, electricity, demineralized water, gas and industrial effluent treatment. After the call for tenders, launched in July 2007, the new partner of La Seda de Barcelona has formed the company Artelier Environment, which brings the experience and know-how of Veolia Water and Veolia Energy together to manage the project of Artenius.
Classified as a project of national interest by the Portuguese government, in 2010, the industrial plant in Sines is expected to have a production capacity of 700,000 m.t./yr of PTA, the raw material required for the production of PET. La Seda de Barcelona is the principal producer of PET and PET preforms, a 100% recyclable material, for the packaging industry and other markets including, among others, carbonated beverages, whose consumption has seen an exponential growth worldwide.
For Rafael Español, president of La Seda de Barcelona, “the agreement reached with Veolia Environment will permit our Sines plant to launch itself as a globally competitive production facility, with state of the art PTA production technology. The technology provides significant cost advantages when compared to the average of European plants. Thus, energy costs will be reduced by around 25%, resulting in the implementation of the principle of energy efficiency and positioning our company as the most technologically advanced of our sector. "
Artelia Ambiente, holding 100% of Veolia Environnement, has started construction of the complex installations on a 2.15 hectare plot contiguous to the future PTA plant. It is expected that the production plant, including a 40MW cogeneration unit, will open in the final quarter of 2009. The service center will be managed by 25 employees previously trained in similar installations directed by Veolia Environnement.
Veolia Environnement’s project has been designed to limit the environmental impact through the installation of a treatment process of anaerobic effluents that will reduce the volume of waste and recover the biogas used in place of natural gas to produce vapor. For Stéphane Caine, senior vice president of Industral Markets and Tertiaries of Veolia Environnement, “this new agreement confirms the quality of our project of multiuse services for industrial companies, in particular those related to the chemical industry.”