Coatzacoalcos (Mexico)-To optimize industrial resin production costs, Braskem () wants to expand the use of ethane and depend less on NAFTA, derived from oil which is the main raw material used by the company in most of its operations in Brazil. Petrochemistry wants to take advantage of the largest global gas offer to import it from the United States, replicating the way the company works today in Mexico, for example.
“We have to increase the gas mixture in NAFTA. It is something we can do in our ovens in Bahia and Rio Grande do Sul, to consume more gas and less NAFTA, which is at a comparative disadvantage,” said Roberto Ramos, CEO of Braskem, in a quick interview during his passage with Coatzacoalcos, in southern Mexico.
The executive participated in the inauguration of a port terminal that will receive ethane from Texas. For at least seven years the Mexican operation, which produces polyethylene, operates below capacity due to the scarcity of raw materials.
Ramos admits that, in Brazil, the offering of ethane is not enough to meet all the company’s operations in the country. “But we will import gas from the United States, just as we are doing here [no México]. Let’s import to Brazil and mix in NAFTA to gain competitiveness and navigate this low cycle that will be long, ”he said.
The low cycle to which the CEO of Braskem refers to a pivot is a resin overofert. The United States flooded the market with polyethylene and China, with polypropylene. Both are used in the manufacture of plastics in different industries. In Brazil, competition with imports has left the industry companies in trouble and led to Braskem to adopt a series of compensation measures, according to Ramos.
“The first of these is to get a degree of commercial protection to prevent US producers from pouring polyethylene in Brazil at a cheaper price than they sell in the American market, which is unfair practice of commerce. The Chinese, the same about polypropylene,” said the executive.
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“We have achieved with the Brazilian government the imposition of import tariffs. We expect them to stay over time, because it gives us a protection. But we have to reduce our dependence on NAFTA and produce with more gas,” he added.
Asked if the company had already begun to import gas into the Brazilian operation, Ramos said that Braskem “is already doing it in some ovens of Bahia, but we will increase.”
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According to the executive, the idea is to have 30% gas in the mixture with the NAFTA.
Meanwhile, in Mexico…
In coatzacoalcos, with the inauguration of the Chemical Terminal Puerto Mexico (TQPM), Braskem will no longer depend on the ethane of Petroleos Mexico (Pemex). The supply of the raw material by the Mexican state was a condition for the company to settle in the country in partnership with Carlos Slim’s Idesa. But shortly after the polyethylene plant in Veracruz began to work, Pemex began to sell volumes below the combining, damaging the operation.
The solution was to import ethane from the United States, which initially arrived at the Portzacoalcos Port and was transported by trucks to the Braskem Idesa manufacturing complex. With TQPM, the company will operate with its own vessels to bring the Texas raw material and the ethane will reach the factories by ducts.
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“Pemex will continue to provide us with gas, but there will no longer be the obligation to fill the plants,” said the CEO of Braskem. This was already foreseen in memorandum of understanding signed among companies in 2021, when the construction of the TQPM was first announced.
Even with the delivery of the project, Ramos says that Pemex will continue, “no doubt”, providing ethane to Braskem.
“But it depends a lot on their increase in their production and this requires an exploration effort. We have to see if Pemex will have the necessary resources to continue investing in exploration and production,” says the executive.
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*The report traveled to Mexico at the invitation of Braskem
