German chemical giant Bayer AG has agreed to buy Lyondell Chemical Co.'s worldwide polyols business and an equity stake in its US propylene oxide (PO) operations for about $2.5 billion.
Houston-based Lyondell is the world's largest PO producer and No. 2 supplier of polyols and toluene diisocyanate (TDI). Lyondell says it will continue to be a merchant supplier of PO and focus on expanding its other PO derivatives businesses: propylene glycol, butanediol, and propylene glycol ethers. As part of the deal, Lyondell and Bayer also agreed to pursue a proposed joint-venture worldscale PO/ styrene monomer complex at Maas- vlakte, the Netherlands (OGJ, Jan. 26, 1998, p. 54).
Assets covered by the deal are Lyondell's polyols facilities in West Virginia, Texas, Belgium, France, Indonesia, Taiwan, Singapore, and Pennsylvania. Lyondell's TDI business is excluded from the deal, and the firm will continue to operate all of its PO plants and its polyols plants at Channelview, Tex., and Fos sur Mer, France.
The deal, subject to board approvals and antitrust clearance in the US and Europe, is to close in first-half 2000.
