BP to Sell Its Share of Polyester Raw Material Joint Venture

BP announced today that it has decided to pursue a sale of its 47.41% equity interest in Samsung Petrochemical Co., Ltd. (SPC), its joint venture with Samsung located in South Korea. SPC is one of the leading producers of purified terephthalic acid (PTA) in Asia with a total production capacity in excess of 1.8 million tonnes per year. PTA is the preferred raw material used to manufacture polyester.

Dave Miller, president of BP’s global PTA business said, “SPC is an excellent business with a solid performance track record and is well-positioned for continued growth. BP and Samsung however have different views of SPC’s future strategy and BP believes if it is able to achieve an appropriate price, exiting is in the best interest of SPC and its shareholders. BP remains firmly committed to maintaining our global leadership position in PTA and to providing reliable and competitive PTA supply to our customers. We are focused on rapid deployment of our new lower cost PTA technology as evidenced by our recent announcements regarding the ground breaking on our new 900,000 tonne Zhuhai 2 unit in China, and the 350,000 tonne expansion of our Geel facility in Europe.