Braskem is currently running its Brazilian petrochemical plants at half capacity as it continues to deal with the impact of a Brazilian trucker strike that wreaked havoc on the nation's logistics, the company said Friday.
"Due to the logistics constraints arising from the nationwide truckers' strike, over the past few days [Braskem] has been gradually reducing the capacity utilization rate of its petrochemical complexes in the country, which currently are operating at approximately 50% of their nominal capacity in Brazil," the company said in a statement released late Wednesday night.
When reached Friday, a company spokeswoman indicated there had been no change to the status or "any new information about the subject."
Elsewhere, state-owned energy producer Petrobras -- which owns a stake of Braskem -- earlier this week said its "refineries are operating" amid consistent market feedback of worker strikes and roadblocks impacting production.
Market sources this week also indicated that both the Brazilian trucker strike and a separate refinery workers strike were impacting Petrobras' ability to produce and supply feedstock naphtha and natural gas to Braskem. Petrobras, however, addressed those reports by saying "there is no impact to the market supply."
Multiple requests for additional feedback or details were not returned by Petrobras.
Brazilian truck drivers were on strike for 10 days, ending late this week, in protest of rising diesel prices after state-owned Petrobras issued new diesel higher pricing that tracked recently higher international crude prices.
The strike severely impacted the availability of food and gasoline in the region, while also inhibiting non-industrial transportation due to more than 500 road blocks in the region, a major Brazilian polymers distributor source said.
"We went from leader of Latin America to Venezuela in one week," the source said, adding that their company is essentially shut down for the foreseeable future. "Even if you receive materials, you cannot move finished goods or existing stocks, and you cannot bring workers to factories."
