BP Sells Malaysian Plant To Reliance

BP will sell a purified terephthalic acid (PTA) plant in Kuantan, Malaysia, to India’s Reliance Industries for $230 million. The plant has 610,000 metric tons per year of capacity for the polyester intermediate. Reliance is already involved with the plant as a supplier of raw material and as a buyer of PTA. BP is conducting the sale as part of a $38 billion program of divestments to fund legal settlements stemming from the 2010 Deepwater Horizon accident. BP says it still considers PTA an important business, noting that it is nearly doubling the size of its PTA plant in Zhuhai, China, to 2.75 million metric tons.