M&G Polymers USA files for bankruptcy

A US subsidiary of Mossi & Ghisolfi (M&G) filed for bankruptcy protection under Chapter 11 on 24 October. The subsidiary, M&G Polymers USA, made the filing in US Bankruptcy Court, Delaware District. M&G said it had 200-999 creditors. It had $500m-1bn in assets and $100m-500m in liabilities. The companies with the largest unsecured claims include Indorama Ventures at $57m, Shell Chemical at $20m, as well as Eastman Chemical at $1.2m. The case number is 17-12268.

Earlier on 17 October, M&G said that it filed before an Italian court an “application for admission to the arrangement with creditors procedure”, or “Concordato Preventivo”, under that country’s bankruptcy law, in order to ensure the equal treatment of creditors.

This filing will affect its Mossi & Ghisolfi (M&G), M&G Finanziaria, Biochemtex, Beta Renewables, Italian Bio Products, IBP Energia, M&G Polimeri and Acetati Immobiliare companies. M&G makes polyethylene terephthalate (PET).

On 16 October, Mexican purified terepthalic acid (PTA) supplier Alpek said that M&G had shut down its 560,000 tonne/year Altamira plant because of liquidity constraints. Alpek also announced it had a third quarter consolidated net loss because of charges connected to M&G. The Mexican producer said in September that M&G had missed feedstock payments to Alpek. Therefore, Alpek stopped supplying PTA to M&G’s Altamira, Mexico and Suape, Brazil facilities.

It was revealed, furthermore, by county officials at the end of September that M&G would stop producing at its 250,000 tonne/year Mason county, West Virginia, US plant. Since then M&G disclosed plans in early October to release 100 workers at its 1.1m tonne/year PET and 1.3m tonne/year PTA plants under construction in Corpus Christi, Texas, according to information ICIS obtained from the Texas Workforce Commission.

Construction contractor Fluor already released 274 workers from the PET plant being built by M&G in Corpus Christi in September.

Additional reporting by Pavle Popovic, Stefan Baumgarten, Amanda Hay and David Haydon