POY (Partially Oriented Yarn) Spinning
-An opportunity for investment

INTRODUCTION

With the growing demand of synthetic (filament) power loom sector and more and more texturised machines being set up in Gujarat, Maharashtra, and surroundings. Indian Textile Industry has seen a phenomenal growth and demand for POY in the recent time.

Partially Oriented Yarn (POY) is a continuous, straight multifilament yarn with no twists. Since yarn is wound on to the tubes at a high speed, this orients the molecular chains. This is the reason it is called POY or partially oriented yarn. It may be of Nylon or Polyester.  However, Polyester is extensively used and popularised in the market for its wide application.  POY, thus, is an important semi-product ready for further processing into Finally Drawn Yarn (FDY) Textured Yarn (DTY) or some time taken up for making Polyester Twisted Yarn and further and final orientation of fibre is done.  These processes are done to achieve bulk, warmth, comfort and luxury besides, better self-life, dyeing and other properties. Due to this popularity of textured yarn and on-going technological evolution, share of POY is over 90% in total PFY production in the country.

Common varieties of Polyester in the form of POY, Texturised and Twisted Yarn and their specific applications may be stated as under:

Finally Textured and/or twisted yarn from POY is used for suiting, shirting, ladies garments, Sarees, upholstery, casual wear etc. giving a cotton type look and feel.

GROWTH AND DEMAND

In India, rising prices of natural fabrics have resulted in shifting from cotton to synthetic fibres in the recent past.  The country has a huge middle class population who would prefer clothing of synthetic yarn, which is easier and less costly to maintain due to tremendous technological improvement.

The demand for polyester filament yarn is connected to the number of texturised plants, in operation and its present growth, mainly in the State of Gujarat and Maharashtra and surroundings.  The demand for texturised yarn is further dependent on the weaver’s demand from Surat (Gujarat), Silvassa and Maharashtra.  To fulfil the part of the demand, the country also imported 11.83 Mn. Kg of polyester filament yarn in the year 2002-03 and 80.96 Mn. Kg in 2001-02.

POY Production Capacity in the country is around 12 lakh tonnes per annum, which is expected to be 15 lakh tonnes per annum by March 2005.  Table below shows a constant growth of polyester filament production in the country.  On the other hand, nylon and other filament yarn are loosing its ground significantly.
                                                      
  Million Kg.

Source: Office of Textile Commissioner, GOI

In the export front, country exported 91.15 Mn. kg. of polyester filament yarn in 2002-03 from only 1.73 Mn. kg. In 1990-91. In the year 2003-04 India has also exported Polyester filament fabric worth Rs.2390 cr., which is 16% higher than that of previous year.

Looking to the emerging potential and untapped market both in the country and abroad, India’s Polyester major – Reliance Industries – is also building additional half a million tonnes per year of its polyester capacity by investing in its polyester staple fibre and polyester filament yarn plants.  In the recent time, many Polyester Texturising Units, as a backward integration have imported second hand POY Plant from Taiwan, Korea and others.  Some of the units, who have set up POY Plants in recent past are Ramkrishna Filaments, Gokul Anand, Arfis, Garden Silk etc. Indo Rama Synthetics Limited has entered into a technical tie-up with Zimmer AG of Germany for its Rs. 900 crore polyester expansion project at Butibori in Maharashtra.  Others like Gupta Synthetics, Orange Petrochemicals, Shubhalakshmi, Shabnam Polyesters Raj Rayon(Podar group) at Dadra etc. are in the pipeline, besides expansion programme of Reliance (300,000 TPA) at Hazira and Patalganga Plants.

 It is believed that Polyester sector will continue to be attractive at least till next 5years and reache closed to that of China (20 lakhs tonnes/annum as on today).

AVAILABILITY OF RAW MATERIAL AND TECHNOLOGY

Most of the spinning machines in the world exist based on chips drying and spinning.   In the case of chips spinning, chips passes through crystalliser/ dryer, extruder and then after melt flows through candle filters, manifold, spinning beam, spinnerets etc.  While in the case of direct spinning, melt from poly-condensation comes directly to candle filters, manifold, spinning beam, spinnerets etc.

The major Raw Materials are PTA or DMT and MEG.  PTA or DMT is mixed with MEG to produce Partially Oriented Yarn.  In the polymer plant, basic raw materials for making polyester yarn are purified terephthalic acid or dimethyl terepthalatle and monoethyl glycol. These are stored in silos. From there, they are fed to esterifier where chemical reaction takes place. After the number of hours, the melt is transferred to the polymerizer to complete the reaction. Finally the molten polymer is extruded through the nozzles to form long strands. These are cooled and cut into small pieces, which are called chips.These chips could be full dull, semi dull, bright or cationic. During chemical reaction, certain additives are added to make semi dull or full dull or cationic chips.

MEG (Mono Ethylene Glycol) is manufactured by India Glycols Ltd., IPCL, National Organics Chemicals, Reliance and SM Dychem, whereas PTA (Purified Terepthalic Acid) is manufactured only by Reliance. DMT (Dimethyl Terepthalatic), another raw material, is manufactured by Bombay Dyeing, Bongaigaon refinery and others. Manufacturing polyester yarn from the DMT is costlier, although both the raw materials are available at international price, as on today.  Here too, realizing the higher demand for polyester chips, a few companies like JBF Industries, Garden Silk and others are in the process of expanding their capacity in manufacturing Polyester Chips.

In the spinning process, wet chips are conveyed to hoppers or silos. These are dried with conditioned air. Moisture evaporates. Once chips are dried, they are fed to extruders either vertical or horizontal and melted. The molten polymer is filtered using candle filters. It flows out of the extruder and through the candle filter pack and finally through the melt pumps. From here the melt polymer comes to the spinnerets having multi holes to form the continuous multi filaments. Depending upon the type of the holes in the spinnerets, the yarn will have same cross-section. As soon as filaments come out from the spinnerets, they are cooled with quench air in the long cabinets so that filament yarn gets solidified. Once yarn is cooled, a finish is applied in the form of water emulsion. The percentage of the finish depends upon the final application. The yarn is then slightly entangled using dry compressed air and then wound on the paper tubes as to make big cheeses or spools.

ECONOMIC SIZE AND COST

Estimated project cost for manufacturing 30,000 TPA POY Polyester Yarn (50 – 200 Denier) may be estimated at Rs. 17000 lakh, employing around 500 workmen with basic infrastructure requirement like Power - 8000 KVA (approx), Water - 6-lakh litre/day, cost of plant and machineries may be substantially reduced by importing 2nd hand machineries available in the market. Wide variation of technology in the field, is available. Leading technology suppliers (partly or fully) in the world are:

OBSERVATION & SUGGESTION

The size and colour of polyester chips is very significant for spinnability.  Particles or granule size should not increase and should be preferably between 0.02 and 0.06 cm3.  Before melting the colour should be as white as possible unless the polymer is dyed or treated with some special salt like titanium dioxide or cationic.  Polyester Chips must have required degree of polymerisation and must be completely free from water. 

Wherever possible, polymerization plant and POY production facility should be very close by, so that, instead of making chips, melt can be transferred directly from the polymerisation unit to the direct spinning. This process saves tremendous amount of money in handling and transportation of the chips.

Experts believe that Polyester Filament Sector will remain good at least for the next 5 years.  But, due to the expected shortage of raw materials like polyester chips, PTA and others may cause difficulty for some of the newer POY units.  A few POY units like JBF, Industries, Garden Silk and others are, therefore, adding polyester chips capacity, along with their POY capacity. Even then, while calculating profitability, one should be careful on frequent price change of crude oil import, which has a direct on cost of PTA and MEG, the basic raw material for Polyester Yarn. 

For a new investment decision, entrepreneurs should examine and analyse the input and output structure in the changing scenario e.g. impact for excise duty of 24% on polyester filament yarn, reduction of customs duty, DEPB and Target Plus Scheme, exemption of Service Tax on exports etc. announced in the Union Budget and Trade Policy in the year 2004-05. 

However, to maintain the cost competitiveness, advantage will always lie on good location, strong market network and technology.  Operational and project cost can be minimised substantially by importing 2nd hand plant and machineries under EPCG Scheme and by incorporating a possible gas based captive power generation plant for a POY project.

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