MOSCOW (MRC) -- Latin America’s biggest petrochemical maker - Braskem SA will soon decide whether to build a plant in Texas or Pennsylvania to convert low-cost natural gas into polypropylene, as per Fuelfix.
The factory would produce at least 1 billion pounds (450,000 metric tons) of resin a year and would be the U.S. polypropylene industry’s first world-scale project in about 12 years, said Mark Nikolich, a vice president at Braskem. Preliminary engineering is under way for construction at existing Braskem sites in either La Porte, Texas, or Marcus Hook, Pennsylvania.
"The timing is soon," Nikolich said in an interview at the American Chemistry Council’s annual meeting in Colorado Springs, Colorado. "We are very active."
Braskem, based in Sao Paulo, founded its America unit with the 2010 acquisition of polypropylene assets from Sunoco Inc. It became the largest U.S. producer of the resin the following year with an acquisition from Dow Chemical Co. Drilling in shale formations has produced abundant, low-cost propane, a gas liquid converted into propylene and then polypropylene.
"We are looking to continue to grow the North American business in a market that seems to have a pretty good outlook," Nikolich said.
The prospects for a plant in Marcus Hook may hinge on whether Sunoco Logistics Partners LP goes forward at an adjacent site with its proposed plant for converting propane into propylene, a process known as propane dehydrogenation, he said. Dow Chemical and others are building similar plants on the Texas coast.
In Mexico, Braskem plans to begin production of ethylene and polyethylene by year-end. The resin used in plastic packaging and grocery bags will be made at new plants being built with partner Grupo Idesa SA in the state of Veracruz. It will be Mexico’s largest ethylene plant.
The company decided in April to put on hold a planned ethylene-polyethylene complex in Parkersburg, West Virginia, amid lower oil prices.
Dow Chemical is among those constructing U.S. projects to convert gas liquids such as ethane and propane into ethylene.
Chevron Phillips Chemical Co., scheduled to open a ethylene complex outside Houston in 2017, is considering whether to build another such project in the U.S. or elsewhere, Peter Cella, chief executive officer of the Houston-based company, said in a separate interview at the meeting.
As MRC informed earlier, Brazilian petrochemical producer Braskem lifted the investment forecast for its flagship Etileno XXI complex in Mexico by 13% amid rising construction costs. The overall outlay for the project in the Coatzacoalcos region of Veracruz state has been revised to USD5.2bn, according to a Braskem securities filing.
Braskem S.A. produces petrochemicals and generates electricity. The Company produces ethylene, propylene, benzene, toluene, xylenes, butadiene, butene, isoprene, dicyclopentediene, MTBE, caprolactam, ammonium sulfate, cyclohexene, polyethylene theraphtalat, polyethylene, and polyvinyl chloride (PVC).
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