Braskem: Information from Answers.com

Braskem S.A
Type	Public (BM&F Bovespa: BRKM3 / BRKM5 NYSE: BAK BMAD: XBRK)
Founded	(2002)
Headquarters	São Paulo, Brazil
Key people	Bernardo Gradin (CEO)
Industry	Petrochemical
Products	Chemicals
Revenue	▲ US$ 9.2 billion (2008)
Employees	4,500
Website	www.braskem.com.br

Braskem S.A. (BM&F Bovespa: BRKM3, BRKM5 / NYSE: BAK /BMAD: XBRK) is a Brazilian petrochemical company headquartered in São Paulo. As of 2008, Braskem is the largest petrochemical company in Latin America and the third largest in the Americas, after ExxonMobil and Dow Chemical^[1].

1 Products
- 1.1 Basic Petrochemicals
- 1.2 Polymers
2 History
3 References
4 External links

Products

Braskem operates 13 chemicals plants with a production capacity of over 5 million tons per year of chemical and petrochemical products.

Basic Petrochemicals

Braskem controls the two largest petrochemicals complexes in Brazil which are located in the cities of Camaçari (Bahia) and Triunfo (Rio Grande do Sul). Its basic petrochemicals units are responsible to provide ethylene and propylene to their polymers units that are located nearby. Also, the company produces other chemical products such as benzene, butadiene, toluene, xylene and isoprene. These compounds are mostly sold to other chemical companies located in the complexes, such as Innova, Elekeiroz and Dow Chemical. Although its main feedstock is naphtha, the company is constructing what its been called a "green ethylene" plant which will produce ethylene using ethanol from sugarcane as feedstock. This plant, located in Triunfo, is projected to start on August 2010.

Polymers

Braskem is the main producer of polyethylene and polypropylene in Brazil. Besides their plants located in both petrochemical complexes, Braskem started on April 2008 a 300,000 tons polypropylene plant in the city of Paulínia (São Paulo).

History

The company was formed in 2002 as part of a major restructuring of the Brazilian petrochemical industry. At that time, Copene merged with other petrochemicals companies owned by Odebrecht and Mariani Group, such as Trikem, OPP, Proppet, Polialden and Nitrocarbono to create Braskem. The company was born already being the largest petrochemical company in Latin America.

In 2006, Braskem bought the third largest polyethylene producer in Brazil, Politeno. On the next year, the company joined Petrobras and Ultrapar in the biggest business operation in Brazilian history, when those three companies acquired Grupo Ipiranga for US$ 4 billion ^[2]. While Petrobras and Ultrapar shared the fuel distribution operations, Braskem took Ipiranga Petroquímica, former petrochemical company of Grupo Ipiranga.