Braskem (São Paulo / Brazil; www.braskem.com.br) in mid-January announced that it has completed its USD 19m project to raise LLDPE output at its plant in Camaçari, Bahia (for previous coverage, see Plasteurope.com of 25.10.2013) to 120,000 t/y. The expanded capacity has already been commissioned, Braskem added, saying that the output will go towards meeting domestic demand – a lot of which previously depended on imports. To illustrate: In H1 2013 alone, Brazil’s LLDPE imports rose by 25% to USD 281m, figures released by the national plastics processing industry association Abiplast (São Paulo / Brazil; www.abiplast.org.br) in the autumn of 2013 showed (see Plasteurope.com of 24.09.2013).

Metallocene LLDPE makes up the largest share of the expanded capacity – accounting for a total of 100,000 t/y. One of the lines in Bahia will be exclusively dedicated to the production of Braskem’s “Flexus” mLLDPE, used in packaging that requires greater resistance, gloss, transparency and sealing.

Metallocene LLDPE currently represents about 20% of the LLDPE market, but is growing at above average rates, Braskem said, adding that it has been the Latin American market leader for mLLDPE since 2004.