Braskem SA, Latin America’s biggest petrochemical maker, will soon decide whether to build a plant in Texas or Pennsylvania to convert low-cost natural gas into polypropylene used in plastic packaging and car parts.
The factory would produce at least 1 billion pounds (450,000 metric tons) of resin a year and would be the U.S. polypropylene industry’s first world-scale project in about 12 years, said Mark Nikolich, a vice president at Braskem. Preliminary engineering is under way for construction at existing Braskem sites in either La Porte, Texas, or Marcus Hook, Pennsylvania.
