TWO hundred jobs have been safeguarded by a £3.1m grant to overhaul a chemical plant.

Polyester resins manufacturer DuPontSA was awarded the regional selective assistance money to buy new technology to improve the plant's efficiency.

The finance forms part of a £27.8m investment programme by the company into its Purified Terephthalic Acid (PTA) plants in Wilton, Teesside.

Industry minister Alan Johnson said: "This is good news for the North-East and the UK chemicals industry. The grant demonstrates the Government's commitment to high skilled, high value added manufacturing.

"I am delighted that DuPontSA have made an ongoing commitment to their operations in Wilton.

"It demonstrates their confidence in the site, the management and the workers."

PTA is used for a variety of applications but mainly to make polyester resins, which in turn are used to make plastic bottles for packaging water and soft drinks.

The plant's upgrade will enable it to produce an extra 100,000 tonnes of PTA a year. The work will be completed by September next year.

Councillor David Walsh, leader of Redcar and Cleveland Borough Council, said: "This demonstrates one of the global giants of the chemical industry has confidence in the ability of the Wilton plant and the Wilton staff to deliver world quality products on time, at cost and profitably."

DuPont has committed more than £250m to the Wilton site since it acquired the plants in 1993.

In January, it unveiled a £7m control system which puts the latest technology hardware and software into its polymer plant.

But its time on Teesside has not been without problems. About 70 workers lost their jobs at Christmas after the company announced that it was to close the smaller of the firm's polyethylene terephthalate production assets.

DuPontSA was founded in 2000 and is a equal joint venture between DuPont Textiles and Interiors (a wholly owned subsidiary of E.I. du Pont de Nemours and Company) and Haci Omer Sabanci Holding A.S.

It employs 3,600 people at its 14 sites in seven countries and spans Europe, the Middle East and Africa.

DuPont Textiles and Interiors has a global turnover of $6.5bn (£4.13m) per year and has almost 20,000 employees throughout the world.