Losing interest in Runcorn
26 Oct 2004
ICI will have no further economic interest in Ineos Chlor after transferring its remaining 15% ownership in the company to Ineos.
ICI and Ineos announced that they were to fund the modernisation of their jointly owned chloralkali facility at Runcorn, Cheshire in the UK three years ago with £45m from Ineos, £60m from ICI, and Regional Selective Assistance from the UK government. ICI had previously agreed to throw in the £100m facility to the business when 85% of it was acquired by INEOS in 2001.
To date, however, ICI has only made available to Ineos Chlor £105m of the total funding commitment of £160m.
Now, under the terms of the new deal, Ineos will take over ICI's outstanding funding commitment to Ineos Chlor of £55m. And for its part, ICI will write off all existing indebtedness from Ineos Chlor, and take an exceptional charge of £5m before tax in its third quarter results.
INEOS Chlor still plans to push ahead with the modernisation of the site, recently awarding a contract for the construction of new cellrooms at the Runcorn facility to Fluor/Uhde.
The cellroom contract is the most significant element of the modernisation programme that also includes a new boiler plant, a new centralised control room and a series of modernisation projects on a number of the other plants on site.
