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Dow Chem Unit, Brazil Sugar Co To Make Plastic From Ethanol
By Mr Ethanol | June 5, 2008
CNNMoney:
Dow Chemical Co.’s (DOW) Brazilian subsidiary is roughly two months away from acquiring farmland to grow sugarcane for ethanol, a company official said Monday.
Diego Donoso, a sales and marketing manager for Dow in Brazil said the sugarcane grown on the land will be turned into polyethylene plastic under the company’s Dowlex brand.
The company will be producing ethanol in partnership with Brazilian sugar company Crystalsev. They plan to begin producing polyethylene by 2011.
“Ethanol gave us the chance to continue investing in our plastics business in Brazil,” Donoso said. Dow has no significant plastics presence in Brazil, but is well-known locally as a chemical company.
Polyethylene is a byproduct of natural gas and crude oil, though most of it is made from crude oil. The project will use ethanol to produce ethylene, which is an alternative feedstock to the petroleum-based petrochemical naphtha.
By 2012, Crystalsev and Dow plan to grow 8 million tons of sugarcane for the project. The ethanol from the cane will produce 350,000 tons of Dowlex.
“Making polyethylene from ethanol is a new venture for us,” Donoso said. “We are competitive with oil-based plastics as long as oil stays above $45 a barrel, and you will be hard pressed to find an economist who thinks oil will go that low anytime soon.”
Topics: Brazil, Ethanol, Industry, News |
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