Plants strengthen production to cater to chemical industries
Valor Econômico
The main sugar and alcohol groups of Brazil are strengthening their production to cater to the chemical industries. The resumption of important projects of large companies like Dow Chemical and Solvay Indupa, for the production of green resins from ethanol, has led companies like Cosan, Copersucar and São Martinho to review their strategies to grab a greater share in the market.
Cosan, the largest sugar and alcohol company of the country, is being asked by chemical groups about potential partnerships in the sector. The company has already closed a supply contract with the petrochemical company Braskem, for a volume of nearly 175 million annual liters of alcohol intended for the production of polyethylene (PE) of the Triunfo (RS) plant. "The market is growing and it pays more than the alcohol fuel", said Pedro Mizutani, President of Cosan Açúcar, Álcool e Energia (sugar, alcohol and energy). With 23 plants in operation, at least half of the units of the company are already adapted to cater to this market, said the Executive.
The Belgian company Solvay has told Valor it will resume the project of construction of an ethylene plant, using ethanol as raw material, with capacity to produce 60 thousand tons/year of green PVC. The project was stopped in 2008 because of the global financial crisis. To make the unit feasible, the company had closed an agreement with Copersucar for the supply of 150 million liters of ethanol a year for the Santo André plant, in the Metropolitan Region of São Paulo. According to the company, the ethanol will be used to replace the naphtha in the production of PVC. The studies to put the project into operation have been resumed and they are in the final stage, said the multinational. Dow Chemical has informed, in a recent interview to Valor, it is also resuming its project of production of green plastics in Brazil, with an investment of more than US$ 1 billion.
The first company to put into operation a "green" thermoplastic resin unit in the country was Braskem. The Triunfo plant went into operation in September and the company entered into agreements with several plants for the supply of 700 million liters of ethanol a year to meet such demand. The company should define the construction of its second plant, this time to produce green polypropylene (PP) also from renewable sources.