
Borealis Pumps €49 Million into Circular Technologies in Germany
Borealis is investing €49 million in its Burghausen site to scale up polypropylene production and support recyclability.

Borealis is investing €49 million in its Burghausen site to scale up polypropylene production and support recyclability.

OMV and ADNOC agreed to combine their Borealis and Borouge shareholdings into Borouge Group International. ADNOC has also signed a share purchase agreement with Nova Chemicals, an indirect wholly owned subsidiary of Mubadala Investment Company, to acquire 100% of Nova Chemicals for an enterprise value of $13.4 billion. In addition, ADNOC and OMV have agreed for Borouge Group International to take over Nova Chemicals after closing.

Borouge, in a consortium with ADNOC and Borealis, and China’s Wanhua Chemical, together with Wanrong New Materials, a subsidiary controlled by Wanhua, signed a project collaboration agreement for a feasibility study to develop a 1.6 million t/y specialty state-of-the-art polyolefin complex in Fuzhou, Fujian Province, China.

Abu Dhabi National Oil Company (ADNOC) has completed the acquisition of a 24.9% stake in Austrian energy group OMV from Mubadala, the sovereign wealth fund of the United Arab Emirates. Financial details of the transaction, which was announced in December 2022, were not disclosed.

Olefins and polyolefins producer Borealis has signed an agreement to acquire Integra Plastics, a Bulgarian advanced mechanical recycling company. Closing of the transaction, for which no financial details were disclosed, is subject to customary regulatory approvals.

Borealis has appointed two vice presidents within its polyolefins business unit, effective Sep. 1, 2023.

Two former spinoffs from Bayer were competing for headlines on Jun. 19 and 20, as specialty chemicals company Lanxess issued a profit warning amid rumors that Middle East chemicals and energy behemoth Abu Dhabi National Oil Company (ADNOC) had made a takeover offer for engineering plastics producer Covestro.

Olefins and polyolefins producer Borealis has joined forces with Austrian energy utility company Verbund to supply solar energy to its production site at Schwechat, Austria.

Turkish industrial conglomerate Yildirim will now launch a mandatory takeover bid for fertilizer producer Rosier – and a squeeze-out offer for the remaining shares – once the acquisition from Borealis has closed.

Borealis has agreed to sell its 98.09% stake in Belgian fertilizer producer Rosier to Turkey’s Yildirim Group. The proposed deal puts an enterprise value of €35 million on Rosier.

Germany’s BASF and Swiss-based technology firm Sulzer Chemtech have announced plans to collaborate on finding sustainable solutions for a number of industrial applications, in particular renewable fuels and chemically recycled plastics.

Borealis has announced it will retender the majority of contracts for its PDH plant under construction at Kallo, Belgium, after slashing all ties with Italian-French joint venture IREM, a contractor based at Siracusa in Italy.

Borealis has confirmed its intention to launch a squeeze-out offer for Belgian fertilizer producer Rosier. It already held 77.5% of Rosier and raised its shareholding to 98.09% through a capital increase late last month.

Borealis has reaffirmed the suspension of construction on a new propane dehydrogenation (PDH) plant at Kallo, Belgium. The Vienna-based group cited “serious allegations” concerning a two-subcontractor joint venture that is being scrutinized by Belgian authorities.

The 1 million t/y ethane cracker built by US-headquartered Bayport Polymers (also known as Baystar), a 50:50 joint venture of Borealis and TotalEnergies, has begun commercial scale production at Total’s refinery in Port Arthur, Texas.

Borealis is investing about €200 million to upgrade and expand capacity for cross-linked PE (XLPE) and semiconductive compounds in Europe in order to meet future demand in wire and cable applications.

Borouge, the Borealis/Abu Dhabi National Oil Co (ADNOC) joint venture, has announced plans to float a 10% stake in the company on the Abu Dhabi Securities Exchange (ADX). The initial public offering (IPO) will make 3 billion shares available, which could reportedly raise about $2 billion.

Abu Dhabi National Oil Co (ADNOC) is taking over Mubadala’s holding in Borealis for an undisclosed sum. Once the transaction, which is subject to the usual conditions and regulatory approvals, is finalized, Borealis will be owned 25% by ADNOC and 75% by Austrian oil, gas and petrochemicals group OMV.

Austrian oil, gas and chemicals group OMV has outlined its Strategy 2030, which will see it transform into a sustainable fuels, chemicals, and materials company with a strong focus on the circular economy. The company said the plans represent the most fundamental strategic shift in its history.

Another European chemicals deal has been torpedoed by the Russian invasion of Ukraine. Borealis has announced it will not go ahead with plans to sell its nitrogen business, including fertilizer, melamine and technical nitrogen products, to Russian-owned, Swiss-based fertilizer producer EuroChem.

Plastics and fertilizer producer Borealis and Abu Dhabi National Oil Co (ADNOC), the United Arab Emirates’ largest oil company, are lining up banks to help arrange a potential listing of their plastics venture Borouge, the Bloomberg news agency has reported.

EuroChem, a Russian-owned fertilizer producer headquartered in Zug, Switzerland, has entered into exclusive negotiations to buy Borealis’s nitrogen business, making a binding offer of €455 million. The deal could complete in the second half of 2022.

Antwerp is the home port of the largest integrated chemical cluster in Europe. It is the place for entering into partnerships throughout the chain and even across sectors.

Abu Dhabi National Oil (ADNOC) and Borealis have signed the final investment agreement for their Borouge 4 complex at Ruwais, Abu Dhabi. The deal confirms their intent to spend $6.2 billion on the project, which will consist of a 1.5 million t/y ethane cracker, two PE plants producing 1.4 million t/y and a 100,000 t/y cross-linked PE plant.

Air Liquide, Borealis, TotalEnergies, Esso and Yara International have signed a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) to explore the development of a carbon capture and storage (CCS) infrastructure project to help decarbonize their facilities in Normandy, France.

The EU Commission’s ambitious plan for a European Green Deal, launched shortly before the pandemic struck in early 2020, aims to make the continent the world’s first climate-neutral region by 2050. The goals spelled out in January last year call for reduction of greenhouse gas emissions by at least 50% up to 2030, compared with 1990 levels.

The European Chemical Industry has set out on an ambitious path to become carbon neutral. Germany, as one of the major chemical manufacturing nations, has committed to achieve this goal by 2050.

The European Chemical Industry has set out on an ambitious path to become carbon neutral.

Vienna, Austria-based polyolefins and fertilizer producer Borealis plans to invest €17.6 million in a new Regenerative Thermal Oxidizer (RTO) for its polyolefins plants in Porvoo, Finland, as part of an effort to significantly lower the site’s CO2 emission.

Austrian chemical producer Borealis has announced plans to divest its nitrogen business, including fertilizer, technical nitrogen and melamine products. The Vienna-based group, which has increasingly shifted its focus to petrochemicals and plastics, has begun consultations with employee representatives.

Following completion of a comprehensive feasibility study, tentative plans for a major petrochemical complex in India have been shelved for now, due to what the prospective international project partners said were global economic uncertainties caused by the Covid-19 pandemic.

Following an agreement announced in March this year, OMV has completed its purchase of an additional 39% stake in Borealis from Mubadala Investment Company for €4.68 billion.

Abu Dhabi National Oil Company (ADNOC) has signed a joint venture agreement with diversified holding company ADQ to create a new chemicals investment platform for funding and developing industrial projects at the proposed Ruwais Derivatives Park.

Borealis, OMV, electricity group Verbund and cement company Lafarge Zementwerke have signed a Memorandum of Understanding to plan and construct a full-scale carbon capture plant in Austria. The captured CO2 would be used to make synthetic fuels, chemicals or plastics.

The chemical industry is on the threshold of a new era – the age of circularity. We asked industry experts to share their opinions on this transformational topic.