Arsenal Capital closes on purchase of Spartech for USD115 million

MOSCOW (MRC) -- Private equity firm Arsenal Capital Partners closed on its USD115 million acquisition of Spartech LLC from PolyOne Corp, reported 4-traders.

As part of the sale, Cleveland-based chemical company PolyOne divested its Designed Structures and Solutions segment that includes packaging, visual and structural sheet and rollstock materials.

Upon finalization of the deal Wednesday, New York-based Arsenal renamed the segment Spartech LLC, its name prior to PolyOne's purchase of Clayton-based Spartech Corp. in 2013 for USD393 million. Some operations PolyCorp acquired from Spartech Corp., including compounding, were integrated into other PolyOne divisions and are not part of the sale.

The newly formed Spartech LLC, whose brands include Polycast, Royalite and SoundX, has 15 manufacturing facilities and its headquarters will be in Maryland Heights, Arsenal said in a statement.

George Abd, an Arsenal senior adviser and former Spartech Corp. executive, is Spartech LLC's CEO and president. Bob Robison is CFO.

"We are excited to return to the Spartech name and its great customer focused heritage, including the commitment to work hard and drive great service for our customers every day," Abd said in a statement.

As MRC informed before, expanding on its global footprint and expertise in thermoplastic elastomer (TPE) innovation and design, PolyOne Corporation announced it has acquired certain technologies and assets from Kraton Performance Polymers, Inc., in February 2016. Two companies also entered into a supply agreement, whereby Kraton will provide PolyOne certain raw materials used in production for the acquired business.

PolyOne Corporation, with 2014 revenues of USD3.8 billion, is a premier provider of specialized polymer materials, services and solutions with operations in specialty polymer formulations, color and additive systems, polymer distribution and specialty vinyl resins.
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MOSCOW (MRC) -- Formosa Plastics' force majeure and sales control on its polyethylene (PE) and polypropylene (PP) from its Point Comfort, Texas, complex will last through the end of July, the company has told its customers, as per Plastemart.

All PP and PE units have resumed production, the company said in a letter to customers sent late Monday and obtained by obtained by S&P Global Platts on Tuesday.

Capacities at Point Comfort complex include almost 1.5 mln mtpa of high density polyethylene, 582,000 mt/year of linear low-density polyethylene, 1.9 mln mt/year of polypropylene. Polyethylene and polypropylene markets have been talked tighter in July, with some sources pointing to the outages as one contributing factor. Formosa Plastics declared force majeure on both polymers June 27, three days after multiple units at Point Comfort - about 90 miles from Corpus Christi - unexpectedly went down due to a weather-related event, which multiple sources with knowledge of company operations attributed to lightning strikes.

Formosa Plastics spokesman Steve Rice Friday said all lines were running, or "scheduled to be so very soon." Multiple market sources said late last week that the final polyethylene line - which produces high density polyethylene grades including high molecular weight film - could be back up by the weekend. Formosa Plastics said in the letter that all August orders would be subject to ability to suppl, "based upon ongoing normal operations of our facilities."

As MRC informed before, in 2015, Formosa Plastics unveiled plans to build a monoethylene glycol (MEG) plant and another polyethylene (PE) unit at its Point Comfort complex in Texas, according to air-permit applications. The initial pages of the applications do not list the capacity of the plants or the grade of the PE. Construction on the second PE plant started in Q4-2015, and it should start operations in December 2017. Construction on the MEG plant started in November 2015, and operations should start in September 2017.

Formosa Petrochemical is involved primarily in the business of refining crude oil, selling refined petroleum products and producing and selling olefins (including ethylene, propylene, butadiene and BTX) from its naphtha cracking operations. Formosa Petrochemical is also the largest olefins producer in Taiwan and its olefins products are mostly sold to companies within the Formosa Group. Among the company's chemical products are paraxylene (PX), phenyl ethylene, acetone and pure terephthalic acid (PTA). The company's plastic products include acrylonitrile butadiene styrene (ABS) resins, polystyrene (PS), polypropylene (PP) and panlite (PC).
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MOSCOW (MRC) -- Kuwait's Ethylene 2 Plant has resumed operation following a brief shutdown for technical considerations last week, according to Plastemart.

"Operations at our EU2 have resumed normally in record time following repairs. Both the Ethylene Glycol and Polyethylene plants in Kuwait have returned to the usual production levels as they were impacted by the temporary shutdown of EU2," the Kuwait News Agency, KUNA, quoted EQUATE Group’s President and CEO Mohammad Husain as saying.

The EU2 has a production capacity of 850,000 metric tons annually and is owned by The Kuwait Olefins Company, TKOC, part of the EQUATE Group.

As MRC informed before, Kuwait-based Equate Petrochemical Company continued its global growth through its wholly owned subsidiary MEGlobal with the launch of work on a new world-scale ethylene glycol (EG) manufacturing facility in Freeport, Texas, US, in August 2016. With this plant, Equate is the first Kuwaiti petrochemical company to invest in the US. The new facility, to be completed during 2019, will increase Equate’s monoethylene glycol (MEG) capacity by 750,000 metric tonnes annually and will enhance the company’s global presence to meet customer needs.

Equate is the world’s second largest EG producer with 12% of the global market share.

Equate Petrochemical Company K.S.C.C., together with its subsidiaries, manufactures, markets, and distributes petrochemical products. The company produces ethylene, polyethylene terephthalate, polypropylene, styrene monomer, paraxylene, heavy aromatics, and benzene; polyethylene for various applications, including flexible and food packaging, industrial packaging, agricultural films, HIC, and others; and monoethylene and diethylene glycol that are used in polyester fiber for fabrics, water-based adhesive materials, shoe polish, and printer inks, as well as automotive anti-freeze and coolants. The company sells its products in Kuwait and other Gulf Cooperation Council countries, North America, Asia, Europe, and internationally. Equate Petrochemical Company K.S.C.C. was founded in 1994 and is headquartered in Safat, Kuwait.
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MOSCOW (MRC) -- Lotte Chemical has restarted its polypropylene (PP) plant following an unplanned outage, as per Apic-online.

A Polymerupdate source in South Korea informed that the company has brought on-stream its plant early this week. The plant was shut on July 10, 2017 on account of fire.

Located at Yeosu, South Korea, the plant has a production capacity of 300,000 mt/year.

As MRC informed before, in May 2016, Lotte Chemical Corp. has finalized the takeover of Samsung Group’s chemical units.The company said that it paid for money to acquire Samsung SDI Chemical on Apr. 29 and completed the acquisition of Samsung Group’s chemical businesses in about six months after the announcement of "Big Deal" in October 2015. Samsung Fine Chemicals, which was completely taken over by Lotte in Feb., changed its name to Lotte Fine Chemical, while SDI Chemical, which completed the acquisition process on the 29th, changed its name to Lotte Advanced Materials through the general meeting of stockholders.

Established in 1976, Lotte Chemical has been solidifyng its position by localizing cutting-edge petrochemical technologies. Among the high-quality products produced by Lotte Chemical through its efficient processes are ethylene, HDPE, LDPE, LLDPE, PP, functional resin, EG, SM, PIA, PET, etc. Lotte Chemical’s products are being distributed to 152 countries around the world. With the acquisition of Pakistan’s PTA in 2009, Artenius in the UK in 2010 and Titan Chemical Corp., Lotte Chemical is now able to efficiently supply excellent products to an increasing number of countries. The company is further accelerating its efforts to strengthen its global competitiveness by establishing overseas branches in Hong Kong, Russia, and USA, along with the sales corporation in China for active sales activities both in domestic and abroad.
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MOSCOW (MRC) -- Indian oil Corp Ltd (IOCL) has started maintenance at its polypropylene (PP) plant at Panipat refinery in northern India, according to Apic-online.

A Polymerupdate source in India informed that the company has undertaken a planned shutdown at its plant last weekend. The plant is expected to remain under maintenance until mid-August 2017.

As per earlier plans, the plant was supposed to shut in early-July 2017.

Located at Panipat in the northern Indian state of Haryana, the PP plant comprising two units has a production capacity of 300,000 mt/year each.

As MRC wrote before, Indian Oil Corporation's Rs 34,555-crore 15 million tonnes per annum Paradip Refinery was commissioned in phases from March 2015 onwards. Indian Oil Corporation was conducting feasibility studies to set up a petrochemical complex at Paradip in Odisha for Rs 20,000 crore. The petrochemical complex will be built in the vicinity of the company’s to-be-commissioned 15-mln tpa greenfield refinery at Paradip. The petrochemical complex will be in addition to the already announced Rs 3,150-crore polypropylene project at the same location, the foundation stone for which was laid by MOS for petroleum and natural gas.

Indian Oil Corporation Limited, or IndianOil, is an Indian state-owned oil and gas corporation with its headquarters in New Delhi, India.
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