Corpus Christi Polymers LLC (“CC Polymers”), a newly formed joint venture between Alpek, S.A.B. de C.V. (“Alpek”), Indorama Ventures Holdings LP (“Indorama”) a subsidiary of Indorama Ventures public company limited, and Far Eastern Investment (Holding) Limited (“Far Eastern”), has entered into an asset purchase agreement with M&G USA Corp. and its affiliated debtors (“M&G”) whereby CC Polymers will acquire the integrated PTA-PET plant currently under construction in Corpus Christi, Texas (the “Corpus Christi Project”), certain M&G intellectual property, and a desalination/boiler plant providing water and steam to the Corpus Christi Project. The purchase agreement provides M&G with a binding bid of USD 1.125 billion in cash and other capital contributions.
The Corpus Christi Project is an integrated PTA-PET plant currently under development that, when completed, will have nominal capacity of 1.1 mta and 1.3 mta of PET and PTA, respectively. The plant is expected to be the largest single line vertically integrated PTA to PET production facility in the world and the largest PTA plant in the Americas.
In 2011 DAK closed on its purchase of Eastman Chemical Company’s Columbia, South Carolina PET assets and announced the purchase of Wellman’s PET assets at Port Bienville, Mississippi. DAK has since debottlenecked its Columbia, South Carolina facility by about 100 kta in 1H13 and shuttered its Cape Fear, North Carolina PTA, PET, and polyester fiber facility in 2H13. After starting up its 430 kta melt-to-resin plant in 2011, Indorama closed on its purchase of Invista’s US and Mexican PET assets in 1H11. In 2009, Portuguese investment firm ImatsoGil Group had purchased an idled PTT fiber resin plant that had been jointly owned by Shell and Investissement Quebec. They converted the asset to a 120 kta PET facility with the purchase of a solid state, purchased from the former Wellman asset at Florence, South Carolina. Ultimately, this took the industry from seven producers down to five: DAK, Indorama, M&G, Nan Ya, and Selenis. The consolidations saw the exit of the last of the last original North American PET players, Eastman Chemical. It also saw the North American PET industry with no US-owned players, with DAK owned by Mexico’s Grupo ALFA, Indorama owned out of Thailand, M&G family owned out of Italy, Nan Ya owned by Taiwan’s Formosa, and Selenis owned by Portugal’s ImatsoGil. The final step took place in 2016, when DAK purchased a majority share of the Selenis Canada asset, leaving only four large players.