MOSCOW (MRC) -- Germany’s industrial gases firm Messer is in exclusive negotiations to acquire Air Liquide’s businesses in the Czech Republic and in Slovakia, said the company.
The acquisition price was not disclosed.
Air Liquide started operating in Slovakia in 2000 and Czech Republic in 2001 with 53 employees at both locations and offices in Prague and Trnava. Messer intends to fully integrate and merge the two companies into the respective Messer companies in Prague and in Bratislava in the short term.
"The companies complement each other ideally in terms of their activities and their organisational, operational and production structures. We see many synergies and positive effects with respect to production, logistics, sales and customer supply," said Stefan Messer, owner and CEO of the Messer Group GmbH.
"Taking over Air Liquide’s entities in Czech Republic and Slovakia will further strengthen our position on the industrial gases market in Central Europe."
Air Liquide said in a statement the decision to divest the assets “illustrates Air Liquide’s strategy to review regularly its asset portfolio and focus its geographic expansion on key regions in order to increase density and therefore enhance performance".
This transaction is subject to the final and definitive agreement between the parties, and will be carried out in the framework of the relevant social processes and ongoing dialogue with the employee representatives’ bodies.
With the deal, Messer would take over assets in Prague and Trnava, near Bratislava, along with 53 employees. “Taking over Air Liquide’s entities in Czech Republic and Slovakia will further strengthen our position on the industrial gases market in central Europe,” said Messer’s CEO, Stefan Messer.
As MRC informed previously, in July 2019, Air Liquide signed a long-term agreement with Gulf Coast Growth Ventures (GCGV), a 50/50 joint venture between ExxonMobil and SABIC, to supply oxygen and nitrogen from its industrial gas pipeline network to GCGV’s planned ethane cracker facility located near Corpus Christi, in Texas.
We also remind that Shell Singapore restarted its naphtha cracker in Bukom Island in early December 2019, following a two months maintenance shutdown since the beginning of October 2019. Thus, this cracker was taken off-stream for the turnaround on 1 October 2019. The cracker is able to produce 960,000 tons/year of ethylene and 550,000 tons/year of propylene.
Ethylene and propylene are feedstocks for producing polyethylene (PE) and polypropylene (PP).
According to MRC's ScanPlast report, Russia's estimated PE consumption totalled 1,904,410 tonnes in the first eleven months of 2019, up by 6% year on year. Shipments of all PE grades increased. PE shipments increased from both domestic producers and foreign suppliers. The PP consumption in the Russian market was 1,161,830 tonnes in January-November 2019, up by 7% year on year. Deliveries of all grades of propylene polymers increased, with the homopolymer PP segment accounting for the largest increase.
MRC