Braskem to increase production in Paulínia
Valor Econômico
Nestled in the industrial center of Paulínia, 130 kilometers from São Paulo, in an area previously occupied by devastated orange orchards, the petrochemical complex of Braskem, known as PP 3, received millions in investments to become one of the largest centers of production of polypropylene (PP) of Brazil and one of the main of Latin America.
Two years after its inauguration, the project will be re-evaluated. PP 3, which consumed US$ 350 million to be erected from the ground, with productive capacity of 300 thousand tons of polypropylene a year, should receive more investments. This time another US$ 50 million will be injected to increase the production of the unit in more than 100 thousand tons so as to meet the great demand in the domestic and foreign markets. "Such investments will be submitted for the approval of the Board of Directors of Braskem still this half", says Eduardo Carnaúba, General Manager of the unit of Paulínia.
This complex was designed to operate integrated with the refinery of Petrobras, the Refinery of Planalto Paulista (Replan), located just a few meters away, and it was equipped with "State of the art" equipment. At the time, it was expected that the unit, as it was originally projected, reached full operational capacity in up to three or four years. To prevent a bottleneck, the company will receive marginal investments this year, for adjustments in equipment, which allows increasing the production in more than 50 thousand tons/year, according to Carnaúba. With the approval of the investments of US$ 50 million by the Board, the increase in the capacity should be implemented as of 2012, totaling a production of up to 450 tons of PP a year. Currently, nearly 30% of the production of that unit is exported.
There is almost nothing left from the abandoned orchards. The green area only stands alongside the outer portion of the company, which hardly resembles bucolic landscape it featured one day. The green has given room to long pipelines and concrete blocks. Invisible, pipelines connecting the company to the refinery, transport, nonstop, the propene (in the form of liquefied petroleum gas) - the main raw material for PP - from Replan to the Braskem plant. Carnauba explains 80% of the propene used is transported through the pipelines of the State-owned refinery and another 20% are supplied by the Henrique Lages Refinery (Revap), in São José dos Campos, also of Petrobras, arriving at the complex on trucks.
The polypropylene production of the group amounts to nearly 2 million tons a year, half of which comes from the units of Braskem and the other part from the plants of Quattor, acquired by the company last year. Altogether the group has six polypropylene units; three of them in Rio Grande do Sul, the unit of Paulínia; one in Mauá; Rio de Janeiro; and one in Bahia. Braskem has 31 productive units, 28 of which in Brazil and three in the United States.