Russia's SIBUR acquires acrylic acid, esters producer Acrylate

‘‘The new acquisition represents another significant step in implementing the company's growth strategy in separate, carefully selected segments of specialty chemicals,’‘ Sibur's president Dmitry Konov said.

The company was bought from ATEK Group, Sibur said without disclosing financial details.

Acrylate, based at Dzerzhinsk in the Nizhny Novgorod region, has nameplate capacities of 25,000 tonnes/year for AA, 34,000 tonnes/year of heavy acrylic ethers (butyl acrylate) and 10,000 tonnes/year of light esters (methyl and ethyl acrylate).

It is just two kilometres away from Sibur's production facility that supplies propylene to Acrylate, the statement said.

Acrylate started construction of the AA and acrylic ethers facilities in 1990 but in 1995 the work was put on hold when roughly half of the plant was built.

The company was under bankruptcy protection from 1998 until 2004, when it completed and started operations at its AA and ethers facilities.

In 2005, Acrylat announced plans to upgrade the existing AA facility to 60,000 tonnes/year by 2014. However, these plans have been slow to materialise.