Braskem to be in top 10 after completing Brazil PE plant - official

12 November 2009 10:00  [Source: ICIS news]

BERLIN (ICIS news)--Braskem will be among the world’s 10 largest petrochemical companies in market value in 2010 after the company finishes its green polyethylene (PE) plant in Brazil, a company official said late on Wednesday.

Rui Chammas, responsible for Braskem’s petrochemical PE business and head of its green PE project, said he expected that the plant - the first in the world to produce ethylene at a commercial scale using a renewable source, sugarcane, as feedstock -would start running in October next year.

“In 2010 we will have the polyethylene plant up and running producing 200,000 tonnes/year, in which $240m to $270m  [€181m] would have been invested. After which we will invest in new plants and new green products in the future,” Chammas said at the 4th European bioplastics conference

Work began at Braskem’s PE plant, at Triunfo in the Rio Grande do Sul state, at the beginning of January after the Environmental Protection Foundation (Fepam) granted the Installation License (LI), which authorised the construction process.

Chammas said green PE could be a realistic alternative to traditional PE due to reusability and energy efficiency.

“Sugar plants are real vacuum cleaners of carbon dioxide (CO2). It has been developed at a very fast rate in the last few years, and the benefit is that this plant can be cut about seven times before it has to be replanted, re-fertilised and add chemicals,” Chammas said.

“Sugar cane has also the highest energy productivity compared to other ethanol sources, with one unit of sugar cane you create ... have 9.3 times more energy in output,” he added.

The greenhouse effect and climate change would also be reduced when creating green polyethylene from sugar cane, Chammas said, as 1kg of green PE captures and fixes 2-2.5 kg of CO2.

Braskem and Mexico’s Idesa revealed on Monday that their proposed polyethylene (PE) complex in Coatzacoalcos, Mexico, would include a 450,000 tonne/year high density PE (HDPE) plant plus smaller linear low density and low density units.

($1 = €0.67)

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By: Franco Capaldo
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