EU regulators okay Kuraray’s purchase of DuPont glass/vinyls unit

HOUSTON (ICIS)–EU regulators on Tuesday approved Kuraray of Japan’s purchase of DuPont’s glass and vinyls unit, which includes the US-based firm’s vinyl acetate monomer (VAM) business.

The EU gave its approval subject to Kuraray’s sale of DuPont’s polyvinyl butryal (PVB) film business in Germany. Kuraray agreed to divest that unit to mollify EU competiive concerns.

Kuraray paid $543m for DuPont’s GLS/Vinyls unit, which is a leading supplier of PVB and ionomer sheets for safety glass, and VAM and polyvinyl alcohol (PVA) products used in architectural, automotive and industrial applications.

The deal gives Kuraray ownership of DuPont’s 335,000 tonnes/year VAM plant in La Porte, Texas near Houston. DuPont declared force majeure for its supply of VAM from that plant in early March because of a plant outage.

The force majeure originally was scheduled to last through June, but sources close to the plant have said customers are being served through 90-100% allocations and that the unit should be running at normal rates sometime in May.

US domestic VAM supply, which has tightened this year from supply issues, could tighten further because of Kuraray’s purchase of the DuPont plant.

Industry sources have speculated that the deal could reduce the supply of VAM in the merchant market if Kuraray uses most of the material from the La Porte plant.

Helm will keep marketing VAM in North America for Kuraray as it has done for DuPont, sources close to the deal said earlier this year.

Major US VAM suppliers include Celanese, Dow, LyondellBasell and, with the DuPont purchase, now Kuraray.