Ineos acquires former Huntsman ethoxylation unit in France
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Ineos Oxide, an Ineos subsidiary, announced on Thursday that it had acquired an ethoxylation plant at Lavéra, France, from Wilmar International (Singapore). Financial terms were not disclosed. Wilmar, an agribusiness group, acquired the Lavéra ethoxylation plant in 2014 with the purchase of Huntsman's Europe-based commodity surfactants business. Ineos and Wilmar have entered into a toll-manufacturing agreement, under which Ineos will supply ethoxylation capacity to Wilmar from across the Ineos network. Ineos now has alkoxylation capacity at three European sites: Cologne, Germany; Zwijndrecht, Belgium; and Lavéra. Ineos is completing a capacity expansion at Zwijndrecht. Ineos already operates a world-scale petrochemical complex including an ethylene oxide (EO) feedstock plant at Lavéra. The company announced in September 2018 that it would increase EO capacity at Cologne, Lavéra, and Zwijndrecht. "This acquisition comes at an opportune moment for Ineos's Lavéra EO activities following the recent decision to invest in the Lavéra site," says Graham Beesley, CEO of Ineos Oxide. Ineos expects EO capacity at Lavéra to reach 270,000 metric tons/year through the expansion. The company's website says its total alkoxylation capacity before the Wilmar acquisition was 210,000 metric tons/year.