Albemarle to merge with US specialty chemicals, lithium firm Rockwood

MOSCOW (MRC) -- The race to control the world’s biggest source of lithium used in everything from iPad batteries to electric cars and everyday drugs is on, said Hydrocarbonprocessing.

Albemarle Corp. agreed Tuesday to pay USD6.2 billion in cash and stock for Princeton, New Jersey-based Rockwood Holdings, the largest lithium producer.

Rockwood is one of four companies that control about 90% of the market for lithium. Demand for the metal will expand as much as three times faster than the overall economy, Baton Rogue, Louisiana-based Albemarle said in an investor presentation. Other lithium producers are just as bullish. The world market may double in a decade with demand growing at 7% to 10% annually, Chile’s Soc. Quimica & Minera de Chile said in April.

The Albemarle deal is the latest example of consolidation in the highly concentrated lithium industry. In 2012, China’s Chengdu Tianqi Industry Group agreed to buy Australia’s Talison Lithium, owner of the world’s largest open-pit lithium mine. Chengdu later agreed to sell a stake in the mine to Rockwood, which had unsuccessfully bid for Talison.

Talison, Rockwood, Philadelphia-based FMC Corp. and SQM control about 90% of worldwide lithium production, according to Jefferies & Co.

Albemarle agreed to pay USD50.65 in cash and 0.4803 of a share for each Rockwood share. That values Rockwood at $85.53/share, or 13% more than Monday’s closing price, the companies said in a statement.

Bank of America Merrill Lynch is providing financing for the cash portion of the deal, which is expected to close in the first quarter of 2015.

Albemarle said the deal isn’t contingent on the completion of Huntsman’s planned acquisition of Rockwood’s titanium-dioxide (TiO2) business.

Tuesday's deal is the largest takeover of a diversified chemicals company since Solvay bought Rhodia in 2011, according to data compiled by Bloomberg. It will add to Albemarle’s cash earnings per share in the first year, according to the statement. Albemarle expects about USD100 million in cost savings by 2016.
MRC

MOSCOW (MRC) -- Former Eni SpA CEO Paolo Scaroni promised Italian unions he wouldn’t shut the company’s money-losing oil refineries until 2014, said Hydrocarbonprocessing.

Eni has begun negotiations to close as much as half its 774,000 barrel-a-day capacity and put more than 3,500 jobs at risk, according to the industry’s main union, which started a strike at one plant on July 15. Eni’s biggest program of closures would be a radical attempt by new CEO Claudio Descalzi to deal with overcapacity in Europe’s refining sector, where the region’s economic slump and competition from Asia has forced shutdowns and caused bankruptcies.

Descalzi, who headed the profitable exploration and production unit before his promotion in May, will probably get backing, at least tacitly, from his largest shareholder: the Italian government. While closing the plants would cause job losses as unemployment stands at 12.6%, Prime Minister Matteo Renzi supports change at state-backed companies and has sought to weaken union power within his Democratic Party.

An Eni official declined to comment on any potential closures, saying a new strategic plan that includes the refining and marketing unit will be stated on July 31.

Closing the plants would cut Eni’s Italian workforce by about 13%, based on data in the company’s fact book.

European refiners have struggled to turn a profit as recession curbed demand for fuel, more efficient plants opened in Asia and the Middle East and the boom in U.S. oil production closed a major export market. That led to more than a dozen plants shutting, the biggest wave of closures since the 1980s.

The now-bankrupt Petroplus Holdings closed sites across the region after struggling to find buyers, while France’s Total accepted union demands, promising not to shut any sites until next year.

Eni told the union at least three of its six refineries were at risk of closing, according to a statement from the labor union last week. It guaranteed continued operations at the 190,000 barrel-a-day Sannazzaro refinery, which got a new diesel-producing unit in 2012, and at Milazzo, a joint venture with Kuwait Petroleum Corp., according to the statement. The two plants represent half of its capacity in the country. The company said at the meeting it won’t go ahead with investment at Gela, while the Taranto facility, the second stage of the Venice plant conversion, and the chemicals site at Priolo were at risk. The Livorno refinery, with a capacity of 84,000 barrels a day, wasn’t mentioned in the statement.

Eni is 30% owned by the state, giving the prime minister power to appoint the CEO. Renzi, Italy’s youngest-ever premier and an advocate of labor-market deregulation, picked a fight with CGIL union leader Susanna Camusso to win party backing for a tax cut for low income workers.

As MRC wrote before, oil processing firm Unipetrol is to buy out the stake of Italy's ENI in their joint refining firm Ceska Rafinerska, Unipetrol said on Thursday, giving it full control of the Czech refining sector. Unipetrol, majority owned by Poland's PKN Orlen, said it would pay 30 million euros (USD40.9 million) for the 32.4 percent stake it did not already own in the firm, which operates the country's two refineries at Litvinov and Kralupy. The acquisition, for which Unipetrol had right of first refusal, followed a bid by Hungary's MOL to buy the ENI stake.

Eni is an Italian multinational oil and gas company headquartered in Rome. It has operations in in 79 countries, and is currently Italy's largest industrial company with a market capitalization of 68 billion euros (USD 90 billion), as of August 14, 2013. The Italian government owns a 30.3% golden share in the company, 3.93% held through the state Treasury and 26.37% held through the Cassa depositi e prestiti. Another 39.40% of the shares are held by BNP Paribas.
MRC

MOSCOW (MRC) -- Styron (Hong Kong) Limited, an affiliate of Styron, the global materials company and manufacturer of plastics, latex and rubber, and its affiliate companies in Asia Pacific have increased prices for all polystyrene (PS) grades in July, according to the company's statement.

The prices for the products listed below will increase as follows:

- STYRON general purpose polystyrene grades (GPPS) - by USD20tonne;
- STYRON and STYRON A-TECH high-impact polystyrene grades (HIPS) - by USD20/tonne.

"The price increase responds to the rising costs associated with the manufacturing of polystyrene grades in Asia Pacific," said Samer Al Jabi, Global Product Manager for Polystyrene.

As MRC reported earlier, Styron Hong Kong is in plans to shut its PS plant for maintenance turnaround in September 2014. It is likely to remain off-stream for around one month. Located in Hong Kong, the plant has a production capacity of 200,000 mt/year.

Styron is a leading global materials company and manufacturer of plastics, latex and rubber, dedicated to collaborating with customers to deliver innovative and sustainable solutions. StyronпїЅs technology is used by customers in industries such as home appliances, automotive, building & construction, carpet, consumer electronics, consumer goods, electrical & lighting, medical, packaging, paper & paperboard, rubber goods and tires. Styron had approximately USD5.3 billion in revenue in 2013, with 19 manufacturing sites around the world.
MRC

MOSCOW (MRC) -- The Sendenhorst, Germany-based Veka Group, a leading extruder of PVC-U profiles for doors and windows, has announced the completion of its acquisition of its competitor Gealan Holding, said the company in its press-release.

Veka said that by acquiring Gealan, a company established in the European market, it is strengthening its position in Germany, Europe and the World.

Veka employs more than 3,600 people at 25 subsidiaries on three continents around the world. The company employs 1,300 at its headquarters in Sendenhorst. Veka reported EUR793m (GBR631m) in turnover in 2013.

With its takeover of Gealan from financial investor Halder, Veka says it will be increasing its staff by 1,150 employees, and is estimating its total annual turnover will reach more than EUR1bn (GBR0.8bn).

As MRC wrote before, Veka Recycling is investing almost Euro 1.2 million (USD1.6 million) in its south-east England facility to produce high-quality recyclate suitable for PVC extruded products. A new compounding line will enable the company to supply European markets with PVC pellets derived from post-industrial or post-consumer window frame material. According to the firm, this is in addition to the existing supply of both pellet and micronised PVC from its German and French factories.

Established in the UK since 2007 and with an annual recycling capacity of 20 000-plus tonnes, the Kent-based company is part of the VEKA Recycling Group, which has processing facilities in three European countries and has more than two decades' recycling experience in producing pelletised material that can be used in new extrusion products, including windows.
MRC

MOSCOW (MRC) -- Wacker Polymers, a division of Wacker Chemie AG, is to raise its prices for vinyl acetate-ethylene (EVA) and ethylene-vinyl chloride-based (EVCL) copolymer dispersions of the VINNAPAS and VINNOL brand in the regions Americas and Greater China, reported the company on its site.

As customer contracts allow, effective August 1, 2014, prices will be raised by USD0.03 per pound in the Americas. In Greater China, prices will increase by CNY300 per ton.

In Europe, the temporary surcharge of EUR140 per ton for vinyl acetate-based homopolymer dispersions as well as for vinyl acetate-ethylene and ethylene-vinyl chloride-based copolymer dispersions implemented on May 1, 2014, will persist, as customer contracts allow, until further notice.

This measure has been necessitated mainly by the continued high levels in raw-material cost, especially for vinyl acetate monomer (VAM), a crucial raw material for the manufacturing of Wacker’s dispersions.

The price adjustment enables Wacker Polymers to continue providing customers a wide-range of innovative quality products and comprehensive technical, sales and customer support services.

Dispersions of the VINNAPAS and VINNOL brand are applied in a broad variety of industries, ranging from adhesives, construction, nonwovens, paints and coatings to paper, carpet and textiles.

As MRC wrote previously, Wacker Polymers increased its prices for VINNAPAS EVA and VINNOL EVCL copolymer dispersions in Europe, the Middle East and Africa (EMEA), effective April 1, 2014, Wacker implemented a price increase of up to EUR70 per ton. This measure has been necessitated by the continued increase in raw-material cost.

Wacker Chemie AG is a worldwide operating company in the chemical business, founded 1914. The company is controlled by the Wacker-family holding more than 50 percent of the shares. The corporation is operating more than 25 production sites in Europe, Asia, and the Americas. The product range includes silicone rubbers, polymer products like ethylene vinyl acetate redispersible polymer powder, chemical materials, polysilicon and wafers for semiconductor industry.
MRC