After divesting its European base chemicals and olefins assets to Sabic Europe (Geleen / The Netherlands; www.sabic-europe.com) – see Plasteurope.com Web of 29.09.2006 – Huntsman (Salt Lake City, Utah / USA; www.huntsman.com) has agreed to sell its US commodity chemicals business to Flint Hills Resources (www.fhr.com), a subsidiary of Koch Industries (Wichita, Kansas / USA; www.kochind.com). The USD 761m transaction breaks down to USD 456m in cash and USD 286m to cover the value of inventory at the 31 December 2006 closing. In future, Huntsman plans to focus on chemical and plastics specialities.

The sale includes olefins and polyolefins plants at five US sites: Port Arthur, Odessa and Longview (Texas), Peru (Illinois) and Marysville (Michigan). It excludes the ethylene plant at Port Neches, Texas, which will continue to feed the downstream derivatives production of Huntsman´s Performance Products division. The deal also calls for Flint Hill to supply ethylene and propylene to these units.

Like Huntsman, Koch, with estimated annual sales of USD 90 bn, is privately owned. The Wichita group, regarded as the largest family-owned company in the US, has widened its polymers portfolio successively through acquisition. Its KoSa affiliate, which became a major player in PET with the 1998 takeover of the worldwide polyester assets of Hoechst, changed its name to Invista after acquiring DuPont´s nylon business in 2004 for USD 4.4 bn.