Braskem SA mulls Polypropylene plant in Texas or Pennsylvania

04-Jun-15

Latin America’s biggest petrochemical maker - Braskem SA will soon decide whether to build a plant in Texas or Pennsylvania to convert low-cost natural gas into polypropylene. The factory would produce at least 1 bln lbs (450,000 metric tons) of resin a year and would be the US polypropylene industry’s first world-scale project in about 12 years, said Mark Nikolich, a vice president at Braskem. Preliminary engineering is under way for construction at existing Braskem sites in either La Porte, Texas, or Marcus Hook, Pennsylvania, as per Bloomberg. Braskem, based in Sao Paulo, founded its America unit with the 2010 acquisition of polypropylene assets from Sunoco Inc. It became the largest U.S. producer of the resin the following year with an acquisition from Dow Chemical Co. Drilling in shale formations has produced abundant, low-cost propane, a gas liquid converted into propylene and then polypropylene. The decision on where to locate the plant hinges largely on the availability of propylene supply, he said. The company buys propylene on the Gulf Coast, while elsewhere it gathers and purifies propylene from an assortment of oil refiners, he said.