Letter IEDI nº 201 – The Future of the Camaçari Petrochemical Area
Letter IEDI nº 201 – The Future of the Camaçari Petrochemical Area
The petrochemical area of Camaçari, which is located in the metropolitan region of Salvador (Bahia) has almost 28 years of existence. It has a fundamental role for the region’s development and industrialization.
After the implementation of its third industrial generation, the area is producing not only chemical inputs and petrochemicals, but also automobiles, tires, beverages, agro toxics, plastics and other consumer goods. With 37 companies of the chemical and petrochemical sectors, the area has other very important industries, such as Ford, Monsanto, Pirelli, Firestone, Bridgestone, Continental and around 30 companies that produce parts for the automobile industry.
According to the Industrial Promotion Committee of Camaçari (COFIC), which joins 53 companies, US$ 10 billions have already been invested, including investments from Ford and Monsanto. Camaçari’s installed capacity is over 8 million tons per year of chemical products and basic intermediary and consumption petrochemical goods. There are 29 thousand people working there, 12 thousand who are hired and 17 thousand who are part time. In addition, Camaçari is responsible for 50% of the Brazilian chemical and petrochemical market, has an income of US$ 9.4 billions and contributes with more than 30% of Bahia’s GDP.
With the partnership of Petrobrás, some companies related to the petrochemical sector are working to install a textile project in Camaçari. The idea is to use the intermediary production of PTA, which is an input that can be transformed into a textile fiber. This project is already advanced and it may generate from 300 thousand to 500 thousand jobs.
The company Indorama from Indonésia pretends to install a branch at Camaçari that will consume an important part of the raw materials that are produced there. Although many textile companies from other countries also want to be included in the project, the main objective is to work with national groups that are interested in a long term gain of competitiveness. This is very important for two main reasons: the first one is the aggressive competition of the Asian products and the second is the raise in the imports of Chinese textile goods.
Therefore, with the third generation industry, the textile project and the installation of other industries that will produce final consumption goods, the petrochemical area is already called the industrial area of Camaçari. The idea since the beginning was to create an integrated petrochemical complex, where the basic industry produces the inputs and the raw materials to all intermediary industries, and the intermediary industries produces the inputs for the production of final consumption goods.
This situation is a lot different from July 29th of 1978, when the petrochemical area was officially inaugurated. The raw materials center of the Northeast Petrochemical Company (Copene) was the first to operate, selling to the petrochemical industries.
