Sunoco sells polypropylene business to Braskem for $350 million

Sunoco Inc. on April 1 said that it has completed the previously announced sale of the stock of its subsidiary Sunoco Chemicals Inc., comprised of its polypropylene business, to Braskem S.A. for approximately $350 million.

Speaking on the transaction, Sunoco chairman and CEO Lynn L. Elsenhans said, “The sale demonstrates our continued progress in realigning our portfolio of assets and provides capital to redeploy for future growth in our core businesses. We are grateful to the talented and dedicated employees who made the business an important part of the company for many years. We wish them well as they join Braskem.”

Included in the sale were manufacturing facilities in Marcus Hook, Pa.; La Porte, Texas; and Neal, W.Va., which have the combined capacity to produce approximately 2.1 billion pounds of polypropylene annually. The sale also included a research and technology center located in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania.

Sunoco, headquartered in Philadelphia, is a leading manufacturer and marketer of petroleum and petrochemical products. With 675,000 barrels per day of refining capacity, approximately 4,700 retail sites selling gasoline and convenience items, and an ownership interest in approximately 6,000 miles of crude oil and refined product pipelines and approximately 40 product terminals, Sunoco is one of the largest independent refiner-marketers in the United States. Utilizing a technology with several proprietary features, Sunoco's cokemaking facilities in the United States have the nominal capacity to manufacture approximately 3.67 million tons annually of high-quality metallurgical-grade coke for use in the steel industry. Sunoco also is the operator of, and has an equity interest in, a 1.7 million tons-per-year cokemaking facility in Vitória, Brazil.