methyl methacrylate from methacrylic acid and methanol plant

Indonesia as a part of world countries must be ready for the next free market era that already came.

Economy condition which slumped similarly with free trade era is an indication that cannot be denied. However several attempts that can make Indonesia compete with other countries should be seek. One of those is industrial stabilization.

Methyl methacrylate is one of developing useful compound.  Traditional markets that use methyl methacrylate, is including glass industry, compact disc, fiber optic, and others. (Mc Ketta, 1985).

            Those industries are very well-known in Indonesia, but most of them get the material source from the overseas, so the industry of monomer of the methyl methacrylate as an intermediate product have a good prospect to be developed in Indonesia. In addition to fulfill the domestical needs, this industry also being prepared to compete in the international free market.         

This methyl methacrylate plant is designed for annual capacity of 60.000 ton/year and operates continuously for 330 days. This plant requires raw material methacrylic acid in amount of 56258 ton/year and methanol in amount of 27646 ton/year annually. This plant planned to build in Bontang, East Kalimantan province. The land required for this plant is 100.000 m². The employers needed to run this plant is predicted as more as 293 persons.

            From economic analysis it is obtained that, this plant requires a fixed capital investment of $41,209,524.56 and working capital as much as $39,729,195.47. When operated at full capacity (100%), this plant will earn a before taxes profit $11,428,134.67 and with taxes rate of 50 %, it will earn an after taxes profit of $5,714,067.33. A feasibility study concludes an ROI before taxes of 27,73 %, and ROI after taxes 13,87 %. POT before taxes is 2,65 years and POT after taxes is 4,19 years. DCFRR is 21,09 %  and BEP is 49,70 %. Based on this feasibility study, this methyl methacrylate from methacrylic acid and methanol plant is economically feasible.