Korea's LG Chem (www.lgchem.com), Seoul, and Honam Petrochemical groups (www.hpc.co.kr/eng) have acquired the Hyundai Petrochemical Corporation on a 50:50 basis, for an overall sum of USD 1.5 bn, after the Corporation had been in the hands of its creditor banks since 2001. With their offer they succeeded in outbidding the final contender, Koch Industries (www.kochind.com) / USA (which includes "KoSa"). The naphtha activities of all three companies are to be merged, and, with an annual capacity of 2.5m t, will give rise to Asia's biggest producer of this key petrochemical starting material, and to the ninth biggest producer worldwide.