Basf starts production of PCE in Brazil
Valor Econômico - 05/08/2008
Yesterday Basf announced the beginning of the production of PCE (additive for concrete) in its dispenser plant, located in Guaratinguetá, in the countryside of the State of São Paulo. The setting up of the unit cost 2 million Euros in investments, since June of last year, and it will increase the annual sales of the product in South America from 2 thousand to 12 thousand tons in up to five years. The company brought the PCE to the National market in 2000 and since then it imported it. According to Paul Seiler, production and technology manager of the Basf unit of chemicals for construction, the company ceases being vulnerable to problems of logistics and takes advantage of the expansion of the sector in the country with the beginning of the production in Guaratinguetá. The executive's forecast, considering the heating of civil construction in the country, is that 2 thousand tons of PCE should be produced this year and nearly 6 thousand tons in 2009. The installed capacity is 12 thousand tons per year, but there is expansion potential to reach up to 16 thousand tons. In 2007, Basf imported 2 thousand tons of PCE for South America. Currently, Brazil is responsible for 60% of Basf sales of the additive in the region. The rest is divided between Chile's and Argentina's markets. The direct rivals in the supply of additives for concrete suppliers, precast products' industries and big infrastructure works are the Swiss Sika, the American W.R. Graice, and the Brazilian Vedacit. The initiative of producing PCE in the country was influenced by the fact that there is a dispenser plant installed in the country. "That reduced the cost for setting up the plant in nearly 40%", he says. The decision of setting up the unit in the interior of the State of São Paulo was taken in the beginning of 2006. According to Seiler, besides the PCE unit, Basf studies new investments in the country in the area of chemical products for civil construction.