Sunoco Phenol Plant Going To Honeywell

Furthering its effort to exit the chemicals business, Sunoco is selling its phenol plant in Philadelphia—also known as the Frankford facility—to Honeywell International for $85 million. The plant has an annual capacity of more than 1 billion lb of phenol and 700 million lb of acetone via the oxidation of cumene. Sunoco acquired the plant in 1998 from Honeywell predecessor AlliedSignal. Honeywell purchases about 745 million lb of phenol from Sunoco annually to make caprolactam, a nylon 6 raw material. Sunoco will take a charge of between $125 million and $150 million for losses related to the sale. Last year, Sunoco sold its polypropylene business to Brazil’s Braskem. It still operates a plant in Haverhill, Ohio, that makes phenol, acetone, and bisphenol A.