SIBUR Completes the Sale of the Oka–Polymer Industrial Park

Moscow, 31 January 2014. SIBUR has closed the sale of the 100% stake in Oka-Polymer Industrial Park located in Dzerzhinsk, the Nizhny Novgorod Region, to Tosol-Sintez, a resident of the park.

The Oka-Polymer industrial park was launched in June 2012 as a service company to develop the production site of the former Caprolactam plant in Dzerzhinsk’s Eastern Industrial Zone. The park covers an area of 300 ha, offering its tenants over 500,000 sq m of existing facilities to lease or purchase. The park’s benefits include advantageous geographical location, availability of resources and quick production launch capability. Currently, the park provides production facilities to 26 tenants. Over 1,200 new jobs have been created on the production site, with committed investments in new production launches in excess of RUB 3.6bn.

The sale of the industrial park is part of SIBUR’s strategy of divesting non-core assets.

Tosol-Sintez plans to secure big investments for the Oka-Polymer industrial park’s development, create new jobs, and boost tax proceeds for the budgets of the city of Dzerzhinsk and Nizhny Novgorod Region were made part of the deal. Tosol-Sintez fully supports and will carry on with the current business plan for the industrial park’s development. With Tosol-Sintez fully involved, the number of the park’s tenants is expected to increase to 50 by the end of 2014. Tosol-Sintez intends to make a particular focus on science-based and high technology production to leverage its competencies in processing polymers and organic synthesis products along with expertise in marketing and distribution management. Tosol-Sintez is going to further convert the production site to meet up-to-date standards, and improve service offering for the tenants.

Background

SIBUR (www.sibur.com) is a uniquely positioned vertically integrated gas processing and petrochemicals company. SIBUR owns and operates Russia’s largest gas processing business in terms of associated petroleum gas processing volumes, and is a leader in the Russian petrochemicals industry.

As of 30 September 2013, SIBUR operated 27^[i] production sites located all over Russia, had over 1,500 major customers engaged in the energy, automotive, construction, fast moving consumer goods (FMCG), chemical and other industries in approximately 60 countries worldwide and employed over 28,000^[ii] personnel.

Tosol-Sintez is a market leader in the production of brake fluids, coolants, washer fluids, engine oils, car components and expendable materials, as well as processing of polymers and ethyleneoxidefor productionneeds of the automotive and construction industries. The company's dealer chain operates across 83 regions in Russia. Tosol-Sintez ships its products to 15 countries.

SIBUR has worked with Tosol-Sintez in the technical fluids segment since 2001, in particular, supplying monoethylene glycol to manufacture coolants and brake fluids. Earlier, SIBUR had sold to Tosol-Sintez its coolants and brake fluids facilities, currently successfully operated on the Oka-Polymer industrial park’s site.

The Oka-Polymer industrial park was established through a phased conversion of the former Caprolactam plant’s production site. The conversion project to transform the production site into a service site was supported by the government of the Nizhny Novgorod Region. SIBUR-Neftekhim and the Region’s Governor Valery Shantsev signed an agreement to establish the industrial park in autumn 2011. The parties also agreed to set up the cluster’s management company in 2012, incorporated as a joint-stock company. Following SIBUR’s divestment of production facilities on the former Caprolactam plant’s site, the facilities were made available to new SMEs dealing in petrochemicals, processing of petrochemicals, innovations and education. Currently, the Oka-Polymer industrial park’s management company offers its tenants land plots, production and warehousing facilities to lease or purchase, utility services for industrial customers, along with transportation, design and engineering, and other related services.

 [i] Including three gas processing plants (GPPs) operated by OOO Yugragazpererabotka, SIBUR’s JV with RN Holding (formerly TNK-BP Holding), which is no longer consolidated as of the second quarter of 2013.