Brazil and Venezuela Join Together for New Petrochemical Complex in Venezuela

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Researched by Industrial Info Resources (Sugar Land, Texas). Venezuela’s petrochemical company Pequiven and Brazil’s construction company Braskem (NYSE:BAK) agreed on the construction of the $5 billion Jose Petrochemical Complex in the Jose Oil Complex in Anzoategui, Venezuela. These two companies will conclude with the creation of the joint venture in the following 90 days. Each of the companies will own 50% of the complex; however, Venezuela will control production supply.

The petrochemical complex consists of two different projects. One of them involves the construction of an ethylene refinery which includes an 1.3 million t/y capacity ethane cracker and the production of 1.1 million t/y of polypropylene, 285,000 t/y of sodium hydroxide and 200,000 t/y of PVC. The other project involves the construction of a propylene refinery with a total production capacity of 450,000 t/y. Both companies plan to have the ethylene refinery processing by 2011 and the propylene by 2009.

According to Brazil’s President Lula Da Silva and Venezuela’s Hugo Chavez, the construction of this new petrochemical complex, which will produce plastics from crude oil and polypropylene, will rapidly help both countries become exporters of such products and enforce the unity of the South American region.

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