Cristal grabs TiO2 business as Lyondell off-loads

The world’s second largest supplier of titanium dioxide (TiO2) is being sold to the ninth largest supplier for $1.2 billion including payment of $1.05 billion in cash. Millennium Inorganic Chemicals, a subsidiary of Lyondell Chemical (Houston, TX), is being taken over by National Titanium Dioxide Co, known as Cristal (Yanbu, Saudi Arabia). Millennium has an annual capacity of 670,000 tonnes/yr of the material, used extensively in plastics applications as a pigment and UV stabilizer.

The majority of Cristal is controlled by Tasnee Petrochemical, a privately financed chemical and polypropylene supplier in Saudi Arabia, and a third of the company is owned by Gulf Investment, based in Kuwait. Lyondell CEO Dan F. Smith says, “This transaction would allow us to accelerate our debt repayment and focus our resources on capturing the synergies between our refinery and our chemicals business to achieve the greatest value for our shareholders.”

Cristal plans no reduction in staff or plants, says Talal Al-Shair, chairman and CEO of the company. The deal is expected to close in the first half of this year. Lyondell hadn’t owned Millennium Chemicals very long, acquiring the inorganic chemicals business in 2004.—[email protected]