Metro Alliance to buy 83% of Bataan Polyethylene by Q3

Metro Alliance Holdings and Equities Corp. expects to close by the third quarter this year a deal to purchase 83 percent of Bataan Polyethylene Corp. (BPC), the company told the Philippine Stock Exchange.

Metro Alliance said the BPC shareholders – BP Holdings of the UK, Petronas of Malaysia and Sumitomo Corp. of Japan have already agreed on the final terms of the sale and purchase agreement for the state-of-the-art, 275,000 metric ton (MT) polyethylene plant in Mariveles, Bataan.

Last Feb. 11, Metro Alliance, through Polymaxi Worldwide Ltd. purchased the senior debt papers of International Finance Corp., the investment arm of the World Bank. The debt papers account for 83 percent of BPC.

Metro Alliance said the new BPC operation would be anchored on an almost debt-free structure. The plant, which was built at a cost of $350 million, can produce between 275,000 to 400,000 MT of polyethylene, a basic raw material for the petrochemical industry.

The shareholders of Metro Alliance had ratified the corporation’s investment in petrochemical manufacturing and the increase in authorized capital to P5 billion.

BP Holdings, one of the BPC’s major shareholders, has extensive experience in the petrochemical business worldwide which enabled it to develop the leading technologies in the industry.

Critical to the realization of a strong, domestic petrochemical sector is the capacity utilization of existing mid-stream plants that transform gas into plastic resins such as polyethylene

These plastic resins are basic raw materials used by downstream converters for manufacturing packaging plastic films, bags and bottlers, plastic beer and softdrink crates, cement, rice and fertilizer bags, water and electrical pipes among others.

The country’s plastic resin per capita consumption is one of the lowest in Asia and therefore has strong growth potential. A healthy mid-stream petrochemical industry will justify investments in a naptha cracker plant at the opportune time to complete total integration to elevate the Philippine manufacturing sector to a competitive standing in the global arena.

To support the company’s initiatives, however, is a government tariff protection and sustainable safeguard measures against unfair dumping and smuggling of imported plastic resins.

The total capital investment already in place in the domestic petrochemical sector is over $1 billion but the industry yet to deliver the desired investment returns and provide employment to highly qualified workforce.

Metro Alliance is the major shareholder of the publicly-listed Mabuhay Vinyl Corp., the leading chlor-alkall producer in the country in partnership with Tosoh and Mitsubishi of Japan. Chlor-alkall products include caustic soda, hydrochloric acid and chlorine used for soap and detergent manufacturing, cleaning of returnable softdrinks and beer products for steel and semiconductor processing for sanitary and water treatment.

The company is also in the logistics and warehousing business through GAC Logistics, a 51 percent-owned joint venture with Gulf Agency Corp. of Bahrain.