Indorama will buy Eastman's Europe PET/PTA

06 December 2007 17:26  [Source: ICIS news]

LONDON (ICIS news)--Indorama Polymers will buy Eastman’s European purified terephthalic acid (PTA) and polyethylene terephthalate (PET) business, the Thailand-based company said on Thursday, pending contractual agreement.

Analysts put the purchase price at about $100m (€68m). Eastman was not available for immediate comment.

Indorama said its board had approved the purchase which had been widely expected.

Eastman is a leading integrated producer of PTA and PET resin in Europe, Indorama said, with combined capacities in Rotterdam, the Netherlands and Workington, in the UK, of about 340,000 tonnes/year of PTA and 350,000 tonnes/year of PET.

Post the acquisition, Indorama will lift its PTA and PET resins capacities by 20% to 2m tonnes and give it a revenue from the business of around $1bn, it added.

The acquisition and commissioning of its AlphaPet PET plant co-located to BP's PTA assets in Decatur, Alabama will give it 1.4m tonnes of PET capacity.

Eastman Chemical completed the sale of its PET plants in Mexico and Argentina to Mexican industrial conglomerate Alfa, on 3 December.

Eastman will get closer to achieving its goal of a 10% operating margin for PET following the sale and the results of its aggressive closure policy in the US, Citigroup said in a note to clients.

Following disposal of the European assets the company will then be left with PET only in the US, where it is aggressively shutting down older PET capacity and replacing it with lower cost technology, it added.

($1 = €0.68)

By: Nigel Davis
+44 20 8652 3214

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