Mitsui Chemicals Takes Control of Osaka Petrochemical.

Chemical Week, February, 2000 by Young, Ian

Mitsui chemicals will become sole owner of ethylene producer Osaka Petrochemical Industries (OPI) next month by acquiring the 45% it does not own. Mitsui will swap two of its shares for each remaining OPI share.

Ube Industries is Mitsui's main partner in OPI, with 20%. Mitsui & Co., Kaneka, and Cosmo Oil each hold 5%, and small investors have the remaining 10%. OPI operates a 450,000-m.t./year ethylene plant at Takaishi, near Osaka. It also produces aromatics.

Mitsui controls an estimated 11% of Japan's 7.7-million m.t./year ethylene capacity. The company's other crackers are at Chiba, where it has a wholly owned plant and a stake in the Keiyo Ethylene joint venture. Japanese ethylene capacity will fall this year when Mitsubishi Chemical and Showa...

Read the rest of this article with a Free Trial at HighBeam Research.

Premium Content Partnership | HighBeam Research provides an in-depth online archive library of reference works.