Braskem and Pequiven announce jv on Monday

13 April 2007 22:37  [Source: ICIS news]

RIO DE JANEIRO (ICIS news)--Braskem and Pequiven are expected to announce a joint venture agreement on Monday in Venezuela, according to a government source on Friday.

A diplomat said that Brazilian President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva will be in Venezuela on Monday to meet with Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez, and that both will attend a ceremony to commemorate the agreement.

"The presidents will not sign anything, they will just attend," the diplomat said.

Latin America's largest petrochemical company, Braskem, did not comment on the ceremony, but ICIS news reported in March that the company was planning a joint venture with Venezuela that would shift Braskem's reliance away from liquid feeds.

An industry source not involved with the deal confirmed on Friday overhearing that Braskem and state-run Pequiven were planning to formalise a joint venture.

According to Braskem chief executive officer Jose Carlos Grubisich in March, Braskem planned a 400,000 tonnes/year polypropylene venture with Pequiven due on-stream in 2009 and a 1.3m tonnes/year ethane-based PE complex planned with Venezuelan oil producer PDVSA.

The ethane/PE project has an on-stream date of 2011.

The Venezuela venture would enable Braskem to sell into markets on the Pacific coast of South America, North America and Europe, at delivered costs from the most feedstock-efficient Middle East assets.

It would also fulfil Braskem’s goal of balancing its nearly-total current naphtha feedstock dependency with natural gas at a very competitive cost from Venezuela, Grubisich said at the time.

On Tuesday, the Community of South American Nations (CASA) will hold a ministerial summit in Venezuela to deal with integration of the continent's energy complex including petroleum, natural gas, biofuels, and alternative energies, the Foreign Ministry said in a statement on Friday.
By: John Waggoner
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