Braskem mulls new US PP plant, debottlenecks – America CEO

Joseph Chang

15-Apr-2015

Braskem mulls new US PP plant, debottlenecks(clarifies number of polypropylene plants to five to match list of plants, paragraph 1)

NEW YORK (ICIS)–Brazil-based Braskem is evaluating the construction of a new polypropylene (PP) plant in the US, along with debottlenecking options at its five existing US PP sites, the head of its US business said on Wednesday.

“There are talks of new PP plants in the US and we are evaluating that possibility. We see this happening in the near future,” said Fernando Musa, CEO of Braskem America.

Musa, who oversees Braskem’s US and European operations, spoke at a meeting of the Societe de Chime Industrielle in New York.

“However, everything depends on the availability of propylene feedstock. We need to secure the feedstock at the right location and at the right price,” he added.

Braskem has US PP production at Marcus Hook, Pennsylvania (350,000 tonnes/year); Kenova, West Virginia (240,000 tonnes/year); La Porte, Texas (330,000 tonnes/year); Freeport, Texas (320,000 tonnes/year); and Seadrift, Texas (225,000 tonnes/year).

On-purpose propylene production, through propane dehydrogenation (PDH), will be a major factor in increasing “much needed” availability from 2015 to 2017, he noted.

Enterprise Products will be bringing on 1.65bn lb/year (750,000 tonnes/year) of propylene capacity at its PDH plant in Texas by 2016. Braskem is the major off-taker of the propylene from that plant, Musa pointed out.

Dow Chemical is also building a 750,000 tonne/year PDH unit in Texas, for start-up in mid-2015, and had been considering another PDH unit.

“We think that can create the opportunity for swaps which could allow us to produce more PP at our plants,” said Musa.

Currently PP production at Braskem’s US plants is running “close to full out”, he said.

“We are looking at debottleneck options at our PP plants as well,” said Musa.

Ideally the new PP plant being evaluated would be world-scale at around 450,000-500,000 tonnes/year but could be considerably smaller, all depending on propylene availability, said Musa.

Long-term growth prospects for PP demand in the US are favourable, especially in the automotive market, he noted.

“We see growth from automotive in the push for lightweighting of vehicles. In Europe the average car uses 60-70 kg of PP, where in the US it’s 30-35kg,” said Musa.

“So there’s a lot of room for growth. The US also has larger vehicles, so you could see even more PP per car than in Europe,” he added.

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