US Huntsman eyes H1 ’17 TiO2 spin off

HOUSTON (ICIS)–US-based Huntsman is now concentrating on spinning off its titanium dioxide (TiO2) business, which should happen in the first half of 2017, the company’s CEO said on Tuesday.

Huntsman is also adding its textile-effects business to the spin off.

While Huntsman had considered other ways to separate the businesses, it is now focused on a spin off.

The recovery in the TiO2 market made the first half of 2017 a good time to spin off the business, said Peter Huntsman, CEO. He made his comments on the sidelines of a press tour of his company’s technology centre in The Woodlands near Houston.

North American TiO2 prices have risen to $1.265/lb ($2,789/tonne) after hitting a six-year low of $1.20/lb in the first quarter of this year, as assessed by ICIS. Prices are expected to stay flat in the fourth quarter.

The chart below shows North American TiO2 prices since 2010.

The recent price increases are sustainable and should gain momentum, given current inventory levels, according to Hassan Ahmed, head of research at Alembic Global Advisors. 

In fact, Huntsman recently proposed a 7 cent/lb price hike for North American TiO2, effective on 1 January.

The press tour highlighted developments in several Huntsman products.

A 2017 BMW i3 electric automobile on display had a composite frame made of carbon fibre and Huntsman’s epoxy resin.

A Zenos E10 sports car has a polyurethane-based chassis that Huntsman developed with Bright Lite Structures.

The polyurethane technology, Huntsman’s VITROX HC 98010 Polyol with SUPRASEC 9801 Isocyanate, was among the three finalists for this year’s Polyurethane Innovation Award, given during the Polyurethanes Technical Conference of the Center for the Polyurethanes Industry.

Huntsman’s polyurethane and epoxy-resin systems are significant because of their rapid cure times, which makes it possible to adopt such composite materials in mass-produced vehicles.

In the past, the cure times were too slow, limiting the adoption of such composite materials in automobiles.

With cure times now reduced to minutes or even seconds, composites should continue to replace heavier materials in automobiles, increasing both fuel efficiency and the range of electric vehicles, making the latter more popular and speeding up their adoption.

The automotive industry is a major global consumer of petrochemicals which contributes more than a third of the raw material costs of an average vehicle. ICIS tracks the movement of petrochemical raw material costs in auto production both globally and regionally with the weighted ICIS Basket of Automotive Petrochemicals (IBAP).

ICIS produces a monthly Global Automotive report covering the major automotive chemicals markets, the auto-industry, the IBAPs and macroeconomic trends. For more information on the report and details on how to subscribe, please click here

Additional reporting by Larry Terry