PQ Will Sell Off a Silicate Facility

PQ Corp. owner Carlyle Partners will sell PQ's sodium silicate plant in Utica, Ill., to settle a Federal Trade Commission charge that its purchase of Ineos' sodium silicate business would be anticompetitive. Last October, PQ and Ineos announced that they would join their silicates businesses to create a $1 billion-per-year operation. However, FTC says the combination of PQ and Ineos, the numbers one and three players in the Midwest silicates market, would violate competition rules. An unidentified businessperson has created a company called Oak Hill Acquisition to acquire the Utica plant.