Oman Oil Company (OOC) has bought German specialty chemicals manufacturer Oxea from US private equity firm Advent International at a reported cost of $2.4bn. OOC announced the purchase on 10 October, saying it will enable it to become a vertically integrated global chemical leader. It added that Oxea is the world’s largest supplier of oxo-chemicals: aldehydes produced by the addition of synthesis gas (a mixture of carbon monoxide and hydrogen) to olefins.
Oxea was founded in 2007 after Advent bought out the oxo-chemicals businesses of Germany’s Evonik and US firm Celanese. Oxea has annual sales of €1.5bn and has manufacturing plants at Oberhausen and Marl in Germany, Amsterdam in the Netherlands, and Bay City and Bishop in the US. It has seven sales offices across Europe, the Americas and Asia. Total manufacturing capacity is 1.3mn tons/year of aldehydes, oxo-alcohols, esters, carboxylic acids, specialty esters, polyols and amines. (CONTINUED - 264 WORDS)
