The International Petroleum Investment Company (IPIC, Abu Dhabi / UAE; www.ipic.ae), which acts as the Abu Dhabi sovereign wealth fund, has announced plans to launch a public takeover bid for energy giant Compania Espanola de Petrolios (Cepsa, Madrid / Spain; www.cepsa.com). With this in mind, IPIC – which raised its shares in Cepsa to 47.06% in 1988 – has made an offer to Cepsa’s other majority shareholder Total (Paris La Defense / France; www.total.com) to acquire its 48.83% of shares in the Spanish company. The total deal is valued at about EUR 3.97 bn, with IPIC planning a subsequent squeeze-out.

Cepsa’s 12,000 employees are engaged across the entire oil and gas chain, from refinery to petrochemicals. The Spanish company generated EUR 9.4 bn in sales in financial 2010. Cepsa’s chemical businesses include an 800,000 t/y cumene line in Huelva, including downstream products phenol (600,000 t/y) – an important feedstock for resins and polycarbonate – as well as acetone (370,000 t/y), used in the manufacture of PMMA, among others. Cepsa also is engaged in the manufacture of terephthalic acid (PTA) in both Spain and Canada. The company recently made headlines for its takeover of La Seda’s PET plant in San Roque / Spain – see Plasteurope.com of 07.01.2011.

IPIC’s global investments currently encompass some USD 48.2 bn. The company is not just the majority shareholder of Austria’s energy conglomerate OMV as well as the associated olefin business Borealis. In 2009, Canada’s Nova Chemicals, too, became part of the Abu Dhabi-based fund.