Bayport Polymers LLC (Baystar™) is a joint venture 50% owned by Total Petrochemicals & Refining USA, Inc. (TPRI) and 50% owned by Borealis through Novealis Holdings LLC. Baystar combines Total’s expertise in operating major industrial platforms with the Borealis proprietary Borstar® technology to deliver a broad range of products to help meet the growing global demand for plastic products. The joint venture includes an ethane-based steam cracker with a capacity of 1 million, tons per year – a project initially developed by Total and currently under construction in Port Arthur, Texas – and a new 625,000 metric ton-per-year Borstar® polyethylene unit to be built in Pasadena, Texas.
Through Borouge, Borealis' footprint reaches out to the Middle East, Asia Pacific, the Indian sub-continent and Africa. Borouge, a leading provider of innovative, value creating plastics solutions, is a joint venture between the Abu Dhabi National Oil Company (ADNOC), one of the world's major oil and gas companies, and Borealis. With its base in the United Arab Emirates and its Marketing & Sales head office in Singapore, Borouge employs about 3,500 people with over 40 nationalities, serving customers in 50 countries.
In line with its long-term growth strategy, Borealis has opened the first joint sales office together with Borouge in Morocco. This shared presence will enable the more concentrated promotion of the specialty polymers business and exploitation of market opportunities in the region.
The new Borouge Innovation Centre in Abu Dhabi, UAE, was inaugurated in November 2015. In cooperation with the Borealis Innovation Centres in Europe, pioneering solutions in the areas of infrastructure, automotive, and advanced packaging will continue to be developed in the spirit of Value Creation through Innovation.
The petrochemical production plant in Ruwais, about 250 km west of Abu Dhabi City in the United Arab Emirates, is central to Borouge's operations. Borouge invested USD 1.2 billion to build the first petrochemical facility of the Middle East in Ruwais and equip it with Borealis' proprietary Borstar® technology.
In 2010, under the project name of Borouge 2, Borouge tripled the polyolefins manufacturing capacity of the Ruwais plant. Approximately USD 5 billion was invested to enable Borouge to produce a total of 2 million tonnes of Borstar® polyolefins per year. The Borouge 2 project includes an additional ethane cracker, a third polyethylene unit, an olefins conversion unit (OCU) for converting ethylene to propylene, and two new polypropylene units, spearheading the company's entrance into polypropylene production.
The Borouge 3 plant includes an ethane cracker, two polyethylene units, two polypropylene units, and a low density polyethylene (LDPE) unit. This expansion project was successfully completed in 2016 and has made Borouge the world's largest integrated polyolefins complex, with a total Borouge capacity of 4.5 million tonnes and a combined Borealis and Borouge capacity of 8 million tonnes. Borouge’s fifth polypropeneny plant, PP5, is currently in commissioning and will increase Borouge’s polypropylene production capacity by more than 25% to 2.24 million t/y.
On 15 November 2021 Adnoc and Borealis announced the final investment decision for the Borouge 4 expansion. Borouge 4 will have an industry-leading focus on sustainability leveraging the capabilities of both shareholders. The facility will utilize, to produce a product portfolio focused on durable applications for energy, infrastructure, advanced packaging, and agriculture sectors. This unique technology, in combination with hexene comonomer, will enable the production of advanced packaging grades with up to 50% recycled polyethylene content. Subject to an in-depth study, a Carbon Capture unit that would reduce CO2 emissions by 80% could also be operational in time for Borouge 4’s start-up. The facility is also designed to capitalize on ADNOC’s recent initiatives on clean energy, decarbonizing its power supply through access to Abu Dhabi’s clean power sources. These initiatives are aligned with the UAE Net Zero by 2050 Strategic Initiative.
The new Borouge 4 facility will comprise:
Borealis Brasil S.A. is a joint venture of Borealis (80%) and the Brazilian company Braskem (20%). The joint venture, formed in 1999, has taken over OPP's compounding business and assets in Brazil, and serves all industries from polyolefins in South America through different legal entities in Brazil, Colombia, Chile and soon in Argentina.