Brazil's state-owned oil and gas company Petrobras announced Friday that it had acquired the petrochemical company Suzano for 2.1 billion reals (1.1 billion U.S. dollars).
With the acquisition, which was confirmed by Suzano, Petrobras will become the second largest petrochemical company in the country, following Braskem.
In March, a consortium comprised of Petrobras, Braskem and oil and gas distributor Ultra acquired the Ipiranga group for 4 billion dollars. The control over the group's petrochemical branch was shared by Petrobras and Braskem.
Analysts described Petrobras' move of acquiring Suzano as "surprising," as the oil and gas company announced in 2004 that it was resuming its operations in the petrochemical sector as a partner, not as a controller.
The national giant had evaded the sector in the 1990s when government-owned petrochemicals were privatized.
Suzano and Petrobras were partners in Rio Polimeros, Rio de Janeiro's petrochemical complex, in which the former had a 33-percent stake and the latter 16.7 percent.
Suzano, with a production capacity of 685 million tons per year, is the largest producer of polypropylene resin in Latin America.
The company, which has three production units located in the states of Sao Paulo, Rio de Janeiro and Bahia, is also the second biggest provider of thermoplastic resins in the Brazilian market.
Following the announcement of the takeover, Suzano's ordinary stocks reached 13.40 reals (7.12 U.S. dollars) each, and 10.70 reals (5.69 dollars) for each preferential stock at the Sao Paulo Stock Exchange.
Source: Xinhua
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