Company News
February 11, 2025
Maasvlakte PO/SM Plant Update
LyondellBasell mulls Dutch PO/SM plant reorganisation
- Market: Petrochemicals
- 11/02/25
Chemicals firm LyondellBasell is in negotiations with workers at its Maasvlakte propylene oxide (PO) and styrene monomer (SM) production facility in the Netherlands about “a reorganisation at the plant”, Dutch workers’ union FNV told Argus.
The union is negotiating with the company on compensation for workers whose jobs may be affected and assistance with transitioning to new roles. Members will vote on the proposed plan by the end of February.
“At this stage, no definitive decisions have been made,” LyondellBassell said today. The firm “continuously evaluates business conditions, our portfolio and a wide range of options for managing our assets,” it said.
The Maasvlakte PO/SM plant is a 50-50 joint venture between LyondellBasell and Germany’s Covestro.
“Covestro regularly reviews its portfolio in the light of business conditions. This includes discussions with our joint venture partner regarding the Maasvlakte site,” Covestro said.
LyondellBasell and Covestro both declined to comment on whether they are discussing a possible sale of the Maasvlakte facility.
LyondellBasell launched a strategic review of its European assets last May. The review is ongoing, the firm said last month.
The Maasvlakte plant is one of six ‘non-core’ European assets, the company said in August last year.
The facility has 315,000 t/yr of PO capacity and 640,000 t/yr of SM capacity. It began operations in 2003 and employs approximately 160 people.
The plant has been idled since December last year 2024. It has been intermittently idled several times in recent years, reflecting a structural surplus in Europe’s PO and SM production capacity. The negotiations with workers indicate LyondellBasell is considering longer-term changes to operations at the site.
Europe’s petrochemicals sector remains squeezed by high energy costs, a higher overall cost base compared to other production regions and stagnant regional downstream demand.
LyondellBassell also has 220,000 t/yr of PO and tertiary butyl alcohol (TBA) production capacity in France and 260,000 t/yr of PO and TBA capacity in the Netherlands. It also has a total of 649,000 t/yr of PO and SM capacity in the US that it operates jointly with Covestro, as well as over 1mn t/yr of its own PO and TBA capacity in the US including a 470,000 t/yr plant in Channelview, Texas, which started up in early 2023.
Production margins for PO/TBA facilities, which supply TBA for MTBE production, are generally much more favourable than for PO/SM plants. And lower US energy costs help to make US PO output more cost-efficient than in European production.
US exports of PO to Europe have increased sharply since 2023, reaching 7,800 t/month in 2024, according to US customs data, up from just 760 t/month in 2020 (see graph).
By Laura Tovey-Fall
US PO exports’000 t
February 10, 2025
Parker Lord Plant Explosion and Fire
Multiple people injured after explosion, fire at industrial plant in Crawford County
February 9, 2025 / 5:16 PM EST / CBS Pittsburgh
SAEGERTOWN, Pa. (KDKA) — Multiple people were injured after an explosion and fire at an industrial plant in Saegertown, Crawford County, officials said on Sunday.
According to CBS affiliate WSEE-TV, the incident was reported around 10:30 a.m. Sunday at the Parker LORD facility in Saegertown.
The facility makes adhesives, coatings, and specialty materials used in the automotive, aerospace, industrial, and oil and gas industries.
Several eyewitnesses told WSEE-TV they heard an explosion, which public safety officials later confirmed. Firefighters were responding to a triggered fire alarm at the facility, and when firefighters went inside the building, the explosion occurred.
As many as 12 people, including five employees and four firefighters, suffered injuries because of the incident. All but one were taken to Meadville Medical Center for treatment; the other was taken to UPMC Hamot, according to WSEE-TV.
Most went to the hospital as a precaution, and others suffered minor injuries.
Christopher Farage, the Vice President of International HR and External Affairs at Parker Hannifin, issued a statement to KDKA-TV regarding the incident.
Local officials issued a shelter-in-place order to surrounding businesses and residences as a precaution, which [was] lifted several hours later. The fire has now been isolated. There was major damage to the facility and minor injuries were reported. All injured parties have been or are being treated.
We offer our sincere thanks to the local fire department, emergency management and first responders and wish all of those who were injured a speedy recovery. Once the investigation of the cause of the fire and explosion is complete, we will learn from this incident and continue to place the safety of our team members and our communities as our highest priority.
Farage added that all operations within the facility have been suspended until further notice. The cause of the fire and explosion remains under investigation.
February 5, 2025
Olin Epoxy Highlights from Investors Call
Olin Corporation (OLN) Q4 2024 Earnings Call Transcript
Jan. 31, 2025 4:29 PM ETOlin Corporation (OLN) Stock
Q4: 2025-01-30 Earnings Summary
EPS of $0.18 beats by $0.21 | Revenue of $1.67B (3.51% Y/Y) beats by $125.91M
Olin Corporation (NYSE:OLN) Q4 2024 Earnings Conference Call January 31, 2025 9:00 AM ET
Company Participants
Steve Keenan – Director of IR
Ken Lane – President and CEO
Todd Slater – CFO
Ken Lane
Thanks, Steve, and thank you all for joining us today. Starting with Slide 3, I hope everyone was able to participate in our December Investor Day, whether in person or virtually. We laid out our Value Creation Strategy that optimizes our core businesses by maintaining our focus on a value-first commercial approach and streamlining our assets to achieve greater than $250 million in cost reductions by 2028. We expect to achieve $20 million to $30 million of these savings in 2025. We also explained how we will grow our core by focusing on adjacent high-return options, all while being disciplined with our capital allocation framework. Olin has a great legacy, a leading set of businesses and assets, and a bright future.
During our Investor Day, we guided the fourth quarter adjusted EBITDA at the low end of our range. However, as we closed the quarter, the downward pressure on our share price created an unexpected benefit to adjusted EBITDA and Hurricane Beryl costs came in lower than we expected. In Epoxy, seasonally lower demand was a headwind during the fourth quarter. However, this was partially offset by continued price improvement. In Winchester, domestic and international military demand remains strong. However, near-term commercial headwinds persist as commercial retailers continue to trim inventories, and consumer disposable income remains challenged.
Now let’s take a closer look at our Chlor Alkali Products and Vinyls results on Slide 4. CAPV sales were up 9% sequentially on higher volume in the absence of Hurricane Beryl and improved pricing. Our CAPV results also benefited as final Hurricane Beryl spending came in approximately $8 million below expectation during the quarter. Although we are in the midst of a prolonged industry trough, Olin continues to realize higher value than experienced previously. We continue to be disciplined with our operating rates as we navigate this challenging environment. Global caustic soda remains tight as European variable costs rise, Asian demand shows improvement, and we are coming up on the turnaround season.
Combined with seasonally lower merchant chlorine demand, we expect tightness to continue through the first quarter. At Investor Day, we announced our intention to enter the US PVC market via a tolling partnership. This has key strategic benefits, including upgrading a portion of our significant EDC capacity and unlocking incremental caustic soda volume. Longer-term, this will facilitate our strategic assessment of the PVC market and how we will deploy our industry-leading cost position to create higher value. We have received initial shipments and will realize first sales in the first quarter. Our Gulf Coast plants recently weathered Winter Storm Enzo with no material interruptions. However, many of our customers were not as fortunate, which will present a slight headwind in the first quarter.
Moving to Slide 5, we’ll take a look at our fourth quarter and full year Epoxy results. Olin’s Epoxy sales were roughly flat sequentially with improved resin pricing offset by seasonally weaker demand in both the US and Europe seeing weaker demand from the building and construction, automotive, and consumer electronics markets. Notably, during the third and fourth quarters, our team successfully completed the planned turnaround at our Stade, Germany facility. It was completed safely on time and on budget. Fourth quarter Epoxy adjusted EBITDA increased by more than 50% sequentially, largely in the absence of Hurricane Beryl impacts. During the first quarter, we expect improving demand as limited restocking begins and we see some seasonal improvement in our formulated solutions business. US Hydrocarbon feedstock costs remained favorable versus rest of the world. However, Asian Epoxy producers facing higher feedstock and freight costs continue to increase the flow of unfairly subsidized Epoxy resin into the US and Europe. We expect both a final US and provisional EU anti-dumping decision during the first half of the year.
Jeff Zekauskas
Thanks very much. So, Ken, you’ve been CEO of Olin now for almost a year. When you look back on the year and you compare your actions or your leadership direction to Scott Sutton, have there been any changes? Or do you see your tenure over the past year as a continuation of what Scott did?
Ken Lane
Good morning, Jeff. Thanks for the question. Listen, we laid out our vision for the company at the Investor Day. And as we look forward, what we see is that our leading position in both our CAPV business, the Epoxy business, and the Winchester business, we’ve got a lot of opportunity to do things that are well within our control to optimize that. We talked about reducing our costs by $250 million. And a lot of that is related to us cleaning up the asset footprint that we’ve got to remove some of the assets and optimize some of the sites that we’ve got to make them more efficient and to reduce our fixed and variable costs at those sites. Those are things that we’re going to be able to control and deliver on, and I’m convinced that we will. And then you look at the business model that we operate. We’re going to continue to stay focused on being a leader in the industry. And what that means is that we’re going to continue to be disciplined. We’re going to continue to watch our operating rates and we’re going to be focused on value. We don’t see the need to get overly aggressive in terms of volume. I said it just a minute ago, we don’t think that where we are today, there are opportunities for reinvestment economics. We think that we’re far away from that. So we believe that as long as we continue to be disciplined, we can hold value relatively flat versus where we were last year. And as the market comes back, we have the coiled spring and we’ve got a lot of value ahead of us. And as we see the trough — as we come out of the trough, we’re very well-positioned to realize a tremendous amount of value as a company from that. So we’ve got a bright future just around optimizing our core. And then you think about some of the options that we described around growing the core. So we’re entering the PVC resin market here in the first quarter. That’s a way for us to begin to test and learn more about that market to be able to position the future of a very strong set of assets that we have to make Vinyls down at Freeport. And so that creates a great opportunity for us. We talked about building on our bleach position, and we talked about building on our Winchester position and leveraging off of our chemical expertise into some very attractive markets that we think have got strong growth and strong returns for the long term. So that’s our vision for the future is to stay focused on optimizing and growing, and I’m really excited about getting after that and continuing to deliver on that strategy.
Duffy Fischer
Hey, good morning, guys. Just a question around the potential change in trade flows from the tariffs and anti-dumpings around Epoxy. What have you seen so far? Obviously, some of your customers are calling out higher Epoxy prices already. But what do you think is going to happen if the ask that you guys have put forward happens, what do you think that will do to trade flows and what do you think that will do from incremental pricing from here forward?
Ken Lane
Good morning, Duffy. Great question. Listen, it’s a little bit different for Epoxy. Europe is a very large Epoxy market. So once the duties go up there, that’s going to be that’s going to be a good thing for the European market and our position in Europe. It’s not like some other markets that you may think about where there are other large sinks of volume. I do think that between Europe and the US, once you put duties there, it is going to drive prices higher in the short term. And when you look at the cost structure around Chinese producers, they were already dumping product and frankly not making money. The situation is getting worse there. So if their costs continue to rise, you may actually just see the production slow down or even or even shut down. I’m not predicting anything is going to happen for sure, but certainly, the economics are not favorable for them to continue to operate where they are and they’ve added a lot of capacity. So I don’t know that it’s as much about product just shifting around and flowing into different regions, because the largest consuming regions are really US and Europe. I think it’s going to be more about rationalization over the mid-term of capacity that’s not competitive. And you’ve already seen some of that in Asia. So, you saw some capacity announced being shut down just in the past couple of weeks. So that’s how the cycle works. The strong are going to survive and the weak aren’t. I think it’s going to be more that story than it is going to be just things are going to move to different regions in Epoxy.
https://seekingalpha.com/article/4753992-olin-corporation-oln-q4-2024-earnings-call-transcript
February 4, 2025
Tempur Sealy Closing Tomorrow
Tempur Sealy Cleared to Close Acquisition of Mattress Firm
Feb. 04, 2025 12:10 PM ETTempur Sealy International, Inc. (TPX)
LEXINGTON, Ky., Feb. 4, 2025 /PRNewswire/ — Tempur Sealy International, Inc. (TPX) (NYSE: TPX, “Company” or “Tempur Sealy”) announced today that it expects to close its previously announced acquisition of Mattress Firm Group Inc. (“Mattress Firm”), the nation’s largest mattress specialty retailer, on Wednesday, February 5, 2025. This follows the ruling from the United States District Court for the Southern District of Texas denying the motion by the Federal Trade Commission (“FTC”) for a preliminary injunction to halt the closing of the proposed acquisition. The FTC has indicated that it will not seek emergency relief from the Fifth Circuit and will not prevent the transaction from closing.
Tempur Sealy Chairman and CEO Scott Thompson commented, “We are excited to move forward with our combination with Mattress Firm, which creates the leading vertically integrated global bedding company and which we strongly believe will bring significant benefits to all of our stakeholders.”
Business Update Call
The Company will hold a conference call on Thursday, February 6, 2025 at 8:00 a.m. Eastern Time to discuss the transaction.
The Company has a separate conference call scheduled to discuss the Fourth Quarter and Full Year 2024 financial results on Thursday, February 20th, 2025 at 8:00 a.m. Eastern Time.
The calls will be webcast and can be accessed on the Company’s investor relations website at investor.tempursealy.com. After the conference calls, webcast replays will remain available on the investor relations section of the Company’s website for 30 days.
February 4, 2025
Reaxis Acquired by TIB Chemicals
Grace Matthews advises Reaxis on its transaction with TIB Chemicals
MILWAUKEE (February 4, 2025) TIB Chemicals AG (“TIB Chemicals”), headquartered in Mannheim, Germany, has announced that it has acquired Reaxis, Inc. (“Reaxis”), a leading U.S. manufacturer of tin catalysts and metal-based specialty additives. By acquiring Reaxis, TIB Chemicals strengthens its presence in the North American market and reinforces its position as a global leader in tin chemicals, particularly tin catalysts. Together, TIB Chemicals and Reaxis are poised to continue delivering innovative solutions that meet the evolving needs of global markets. Grace Matthews advised Reaxis on the transaction.
ABOUT REAXIS, INC.
Reaxis, Inc. is a leading U.S. supplier of tin catalysts and specialty metal-based additives. Reaxis has built an industry reputation for its product development expertise, scale-up know-how, and dedicated technical support. Reaxis’ chemistries play a pivotal role in delivering cutting-edge performance in its customers’ products and are used in various end markets including polymer synthesis and crosslinking, surface finishing, water treatment, performance chemicals, oil and gas, and peroxide stabilization. For more information, please visit www.reaxis.com.
ABOUT TIB CHEMICALS AG
Founded in 1872, TIB Chemicals AG is a globally oriented, mid-sized company specializing in the development, production, and distribution of high-quality chemicals. With a diverse portfolio of over 1,000 products spanning basic chemicals, inorganic specialty chemicals, and coating systems, TIB Chemicals serves a wide range of international customers through its locations in three countries. With more than 450 dedicated employees who share a passion for chemistry, TIB Chemicals stands out for its extensive 150-year legacy as a family-owned business in the chemical industry. For more information, please visit www.tib-chemicals.com.
ABOUT GRACE MATTHEWS
Grace Matthews, Inc., a Milwaukee-based investment bank, provides merger, acquisition, and corporate finance advisory services to private and public companies across the chemical and material science value chain. Over the past 25 years, Grace Matthews has successfully completed over 150 transactions on behalf of private, middle-market companies, private equity firms, and large multi-national corporations. For more detailed information on Grace Matthews, visit www.gracematthews.com.
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