Borden Chemicals and Plastics LP has completed the sale of its Illiopolis, Ill., PVC plant to Formosa Plastics Corp. USA for about $35 million.
The sale was approved March 27 by the U.S. Bankruptcy Court in Wilmington, Del.
The court also approved an extension of debtor-in-possession financing that will allow Borden to operate the Illiopolis site until Formosa takes over. It also approved as much as $10 million of additional debtor-in-possession financing.
The 200-employee Illiopolis plant annually produces 200 million pounds of specialty PVC for vinyl flooring and other uses. It also has 200 million pounds of commodity-grade PVC annual capacity that has been idled since early 2001 because of weak demand.
The addition of the Illiopolis capacity will strengthen Livingston, N.J.-based Formosa's third-place ranking in North American PVC capacity, trailing Shintech Inc. of Houston and Oxy Vinyls LP of Dallas. Shintech purchased Borden's Addis, La., PVC plant in December.
Borden's only remaining site is in Geismar, La., where it halted PVC production earlier this month.
The ultimate fate of that site is undetermined, Mark Schneider, Borden president and chief executive officer, said in a March 28 news release.
Industry sources indicated that Keysor-Century Corp., a specialty PVC maker in Saugus, Calif., was interested in Borden's Illiopolis site before the firm filed for protection from creditors on March 18.
Lawyers representing Keysor-Century said they were unaware of any interest in the Illiopolis site.