Brazilian polyolefins producer Braskem (São Paulo; www.braskem.com) inaugurated its new European Technology Centre at Wesseling / Germany on 7 October. Built at a cost of around EUR 5m, the new centre near Cologne is its first in Europe, complementing similar facilities in Triunfo / Brazil and Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania / USA (see Plasteurope.com of 29.07.2016).

Simultaneously, the Brazilian group celebrated the 25th anniversary of the start of production at Wesseling. Braskem picked up the site from Dow Chemical in 2011 – as part of its acquisition of the US chemical producer’s polypropylene business (see Plasteurope.com of 05.10.2011). According to Plasteurope.com's Polyglobe capacity database (www.polyglobe.net), Braskem's Wesseling site can produce 225,000 t/y of PP.