Briefs
Staff -- Purchasing, 11/3/2005 2:00:00 AM
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Petroleum giant BP is selling its Innovene unit to Ineos Group for $9 billion in the biggest takeover in the chemicals industry since 2001. Innovene consists largely of BP's olefins assets, including ethylene and derivatives, and two oil refineries, spokesman Scott Dean said in a recent news report. It makes solvents for paint removers and resins used in soda bottles. Ineos will spend the next few years consolidating its units, and isn't considering an initial public offering, a spokesman said. Innovene is the world's largest producer of acrylonitrile and the third-biggest producer of polypropylene—with 6% of global capacity according to analysts.
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U.S. demand for disinfectant and antimicrobial chemicals is projected to increase 5% annually to $930 million by 2009, according to a new study from the Freedonia Group. Advances will be driven by production increases in several key markets, including paints and coatings, plastics, and food and beverage processing. In institutional and commercial markets, gains will be prompted by concerns about foodborne pathogens, as well as by threats posed by bacteria, viruses and other microbes. Among industrial markets, growth will be led by food and beverage processing, where growth in food processing activity coupled with heightened awareness of the health risks and potential liability associated with foodborne pathogens will spur greater use of disinfectants. Gains will also be strong in the coatings market, due in large part to growth in coatings production and the ongoing shift to waterborne formulations in the industrial market.
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Kerr-McGee Corp. is planning to spinoff its wholly owned chemical subsidiary, Tronox, through an initial public stock offering planned for the fourth quarter of 2005. "We believe the total value received through creating a separate public company to be superior to a sale of the chemical business," said Luke R. Corbett, Kerr-McGee chairman and chief executive officer. After the separation, the company will be focused on exploration and production. Kerr-McGee's chemical business is the world's third-largest producer and marketer of titanium dioxide pigment, with a 13% global market share and annual production capacity of 624,000 tons.
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Honeywell will buy the remaining 50% stake in its UOP joint venture owned by Dow Chemical Co. unit Union Carbide for $825 million. The transaction will give Honeywell full control of UOP, which supplies products and technology to the refining and petrochemical industry. Honeywell expects the transaction to close in the fourth quarter. The head of the industrial and aerospace conglomerate's chemicals business, Nance Dicciani, has said Honeywell has several acquisitions in the pipeline.
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Parker Hannifin has purchased Texloc and Page International of Fort Worth, a maker of industrial convoluted and corrugated tubing, high purity polytetraflouroethylene (PTFE) tubing for general industrial purposes and PTFE capillary tubing for instrumentation and medical devices.
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BASF expects the Asian chemicals market to grow by 6% a year. As a result, the company wants to achieve 10% of its global chemical sales in China by 2010, and plans to increase its investment in the region. At a news conference in Beijing ahead of the opening of BASF's new Verbund site in Nanjing, chief executive Juergen Hambrecht also said he wants Asia to contribute 20% of the group's global chemicals sales and earnings by 2010. Hambrecht admitted that the targets may be somewhat conservative considering the Chinese economy's growth prospects, but he said that the company does not want to create overcapacity. BASF expects growth in line with the world chemicals market of 3-5% annually, but Hambrecht said that the "objective is to outperform the market."
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ATP's Engineered Rubber and Plastics Group signed a joint venture recently with Hopeful Rubber Group Hong Kong.
TTI signs deal with Honeywell
03/16/2010TTI gets acquired
12/22/2006Nu Horizons' CEO leaves the company
08/06/2009
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