Brazil-based Braskem is mulling various future investment strategies tied to the regional economy and potential availability of inexpensive feedstocks, a company executive said this week on the sidelines of the 37th annual Latin American Petrochemical Association meeting in Rio de Janeiro.
Those strategies could involve major capacity expansions in South America, be it at an existing site or via a new cracker, said Edison Terra, senior vice president of Braskem's polyolefins business in South America and Europe and the company's renewable chemical division.
"We have a few opportunities -- debottlenecking our existing assets, for instance, the Duque de Caxias plant here in Rio, but it's always a matter of having demand and having the feedstock and finding a profitable combination between them" Terra said. "The markets here in Brazil have struggled over the last two to three years -- we haven't had the market growth that we would have expected a few years ago -- so this type of investment would require a little more time at this point."
The idea of increasing capacity at Duque de Caxias is one Braskem has considered before, most recently in May 2015, when the company announced plans to shift its focus from Comperj to doubling the ethylene capacity at Rio.
With Braskem now officially out of the Comperj project, the company is again looking at potential investments elsewhere.
"That would be a major DBN (debottlenecking) and we could size it how we want, so potentially that could even double capacity here," Terra said. "But we are still far from any final investment decision for Duque de Caxias. But for a major DBN at an existing site, Rio is an ideal candidate for a potential investment because it is gas based."
Braskem's Duque de Caxias cracker in Rio currently has a nameplate capacity of 520,000 mt/year of ethylene, and is the company's only completely gas-based cracker, according to company records. The unit is supplied ethane from Petrobras' nearby refinery, but it has also received ethane on a "trial run" from the US as part of Braskem's existing 10-year contract with Houston-based Enterprise products, company officials said previously.
The Rio plant also has 75,000 mt/year of propylene production, according to company records. The complex has a 540,000 mt/year swing line for linear low density polyethylene and high density polyethylene, in addition to 310,000 mt/year of polypropylene production, company records show.
As for plans for a new cracker, the company is considering another gas-based unit as part of its ongoing strategy of diversifying its overall feedstock portfolio.
"There is consideration for ... a new cracker," Terra said. "And as the leading company in South America, we will always be interested in any opportunity involving competitive feedstock in the region.
"We want to be the partner of choice for any country or any upstream company with available feedstock so as to sustain our position in South America."
