Ampacet Corp. plans to acquire Equistar Chemicals LP's concentrates and compounds business, Equistar announced March 1.
Ampacet of Tarrytown, N.Y., will get two compounding plants, one in Heath, Ohio, and the other in Crockett, Texas. Terms of the letter of intent were not disclosed. Officials expect to complete the deal by the end of March.
``Concentrates and compounds is an excellent business, but our analysis determined that it was not a strategic fit with Equistar's core businesses,'' Equistar President and Chief Operating Officer Eugene Allspach said in a release.
Equistar, a joint venture of Lyondell Chemical Co., Millennium Chemicals Inc. and Occidental Petroleum Corp., is North America's largest producer of ethylene, propylene and polyethylene, which it considers its core businesses, said Equistar spokeswoman Jackie Wilson. She said the concentrates and compounds business accounts for less than 5 percent of Equistar's sales.
Ampacet has been expanding globally, with new plants in Argentina and Thailand and expansions in Belgium, Italy and Canada. Last year it acquired Baron Colour Concentrates Ltd. of Kitchener, Ontario, and predicted 1998 concentrates and compounds sales of about $400 million.
Ampacet Chairman David Weil said his firm plans to keep the two acquired plants open. He estimates capacity at about 150 million pounds a year. They have focused on polyolefins but also do some engineering resin compounding.
Weil said the plants expand Ampacet's modest stake in wire and cable and PE foam compounds. They employ about 150.