Eastman To Acquire Sterling Chemicals

Eastman Chemical has agreed to purchase Sterling Chemicals for $100 million. Sterling, which had about $100 million in revenues in 2010, operates a plant in Texas City, Texas, with capacity to make 1.3 billion lb of acetic acid per year, all of which it sells under contract to BP. Eastman is also a large producer of acetic acid and derivatives such as cellulose acetate. Earlier this year, Sterling closed a 200 million-lb phthalate ester plasticizer plant after its customer, BASF, terminated a supply agreement. Eastman intends to retool the facility to make its line of nonphthalate plasticizers. Sterling was formed in 1986 by famed chemical entrepreneur Gordon A. Cain to buy the petrochemical business of Monsanto.