A trio of companies have come together to form a joint venture to buy bankrupt M&G Chemicals’ incomplete PET complex in Texas, US, for $1.125 billion in cash and capital contributions.
Called Corpus Christi Polymers LLC, the joint venture is formed of Thailand’s Indorama Ventures (IVL), Mexico’s Alpek and Taiwan’s Far Eastern New Century and will own, if completed, a 1.1 million tonne a year PET plant and an associated 1.3 million tonne a year purified terephthalic acid (PTA) facility in Corpus Christi, Texas. The majority of the complex was complete when M&G sought bankruptcy protection last October.
Various M&G assets have been auctioned off in recent months, and IVL acquired M&G Polimeros Brazil earlier this month, which includes the largest PET facility in the South American country with capacity for 550,000 tonnes a year. IVL did, however, lose out to Far Eastern in the purchase of assets from M&G’s PET plant in West Virginia and R&D centre in Ohio.
While IVL was M&G’s largest creditor, Alpek was a major PTA supplier to M&G’s plants in Mexico and Brazil and had the rights to nearly half of the PET output from the Corpus Christi complex. In fact, last year Alpek cut off PTA supply to the Altamira, Mexico plant, and early 2018 signed a deal to provide tens of millions of dollars in secured financing to the M&G subsidiary that runs the plant.
All three companies will have the right to receive one-third of the PET and PTA capacity produced at the complex.
While the US has continued to be a net importer of PET in recent years, the Texas project was – and is – an ambitious attempt to feed domestic demand, and was started in 2013.
A timeline for the completion of the Texas plant will be announced in due course but the proposed bid remains subject to approval by a US Bankruptcy Court in Delaware.
