Dow and Mitsui postpone ' green ' plastic factory

The American company Dow Chemical and the Japanese trading company Mitsui will postpone again the project of construction of a "green" plastic from sugar cane in Brazil. This complex, designed to be raised in Santa Vitória, Minas Gerais State, is valued by the market at about $ 1.5 billion.
The value found that Dow should concentrate, in the short term, the most profitable projects, particularly in the United States, following the discovery of large reserves of "shale gas" (shale gas) in the Gulf Coast region. The abundance of natural gas in the u.s. territory reduces the costs of production of high-performance packaging and specialty chemicals, for example.
The plastic "green" factory was announced for the first time in Brazil in 2007, when the Santa Elisa sugar and ethanol group, in Sertãozinho (SP), was appointed as the company's American partner in this endeavor. In 2009, the plant, controlled by the Pauline Family Biagi, went through serious financial problems and was absorbed by the French group Louis Dreyfus, who has not expressed interest in playing the deal.
In July 2011, Dow and Mitsui have announced joint venture with 50% stake each, to resume the project, which initially foresaw the construction of an ethanol plant, with capacity to crush 2.7 million tons of sugar cane. The second phase included an integrated factory for the production of biopolymers for the production of polyethylene (PE). The projections made at the time, the complex would start operations at the end of this year.
In the last five years, other projects with the same purpose were announced in the country. However, only the Braskem, the Odebrecht Group, invested in fact. The plastic "green" factory of the Group began operating in the second half of 2010 in the city of triumph (RS). The national petrochemical expressed interest in deploying their second EP in the Center-South region of the country and the construction of a third factory, in the case of polypropylene (PP), from ethanol. These projects, however, have not yet been brought forward.
The value, Dow has informed, by means of a statement, that will postegar the second phase of the project-the unit of biopolymers. The first phase, which remains within the programming, including the expansion of sugar cane plantations and the construction of an ethanol plant. Currently, companies cultivate an area of 20 hectares with the raw material and expect to have first harvest complete in 2014. "The decision to postpone the second phase is mainly driven by an increase in the costs of design, construction and operation of the facilities, as well as by the uncertainties surrounding the law of land ownership in Brazil."