Huntsman Corp. has signed a letter of intent to purchase 100 percent of the stock of Deltech Corp. and Deltech Polymers Corp., according to Richard P. Durham, Huntsman president and chief financial officer. The financial details weren't disclosed.
The agreement includes three production facilities at two sites; a specialty monomers manufacturing facility at Baton Rouge, La., an idled styrene monomer plant in Baton Rouge; and a polystyrene production plant, Troy, Ohio.The idled monomer plant has an annual nameplate capacity of 600 million pounds. Upon completion of the acquisition, Huntsman will begin engineering for construction of new facilities that will increase the capacity to 800 million pounds annually.
Deltech Polymers manufactures crystal polystyrene at the Troy plant, which has a capacity of 100 million pounds. Huntsman purchased the plant in 1976 and sold it in 1982. Huntsman expects to install new equipment that will bring the capacity to 200 million pounds annually.
Deltech Corp. is the world's only manufacturer of para-methylstyrene and vinyl toluene, which are specialty resins used in specialty coatings, paints and unsaturated polyester resins.
Huntsman has annual styrene monomer capacity of 1.25 billion pounds in the United States and 250 million pounds in Australia. It has polystyrene capacity of 1.03 billion pounds in North America.
"We are very pleased with this opportunity," Durham said. "Many of the specialty monomers that Deltech manufactures are complementary to our current product line and many of our current customers also purchase material from Deltech."
The transaction should be closed within 90 days.