bp to sell petrochemicals business to Ineos
bp announced that it has agreed to sell its global petrochemicals business to Ineos for a total consideration of $5 billion, subject to customary adjustments. The agreed sale, the next strategic step in reinventing bp, will further strengthen bp’s balance sheet and delivers its target for agreed divestments a year earlier than originally scheduled.
Under the terms of the agreement, Ineos will pay bp a deposit of $400 million and will pay a further $3.6 billion on completion. An additional $1 billion will be deferred and paid in three separate instalments of $100 million in March, April and May 2021 with the remaining $700 million payable by the end of June 2021. Subject to regulatory and other approvals, the transaction is expected to complete by the end of 2020.
bp’s petrochemicals business is focused on two main businesses – aromatics and acetyls. bp’s aromatics business is a global leader in the production of purified terephthalic acid (PTA), a key feedstock for the manufacture of polyester plastics, and its precursor paraxylene (PX). The business’s largest manufacturing plants are in China, the US and Belgium and it licenses its leading PTA production technology to producers around the world.
The acetyls business produces acetic acid and derivatives such as acetic anhydride, which have uses in a wide range of sectors. It has a diverse base with manufacturing plants in the US, the UK, China, Korea, Taiwan and Malaysia. The sale will also include related interests such as the chemical recycling technology bp Infinia and bp’s interest in acetylated wood developer Tricoya.
Ineos is a leading global chemicals company with a network spanning over 180 sites in 26 countries, employing some 22,000 staff worldwide. Over the past two decades, Ineos has acquired a number of businesses from bp, most notably the 2005 $9 billion purchase of Innovene, the bp subsidiary that comprised the majority of bp’s then chemicals assets and two refineries.
This agreement means that bp has now agreed $15 billion of divestments and other disposals through 2019 and 2020 to date, an amount originally expected to be reached by mid-2021. bp expects to report its second quarter 2020 results on 4 August and to hold a capital markets day to set out details of its new strategic direction in mid-September.
