Evonik has agreed to sell its US betaine business in Hopewell, Virginia (pictured), to speciality chemicals company Kensing. The deal is expected to close in Q3. This follows the sale of the firm’s UK betaines site at Milton Keynes and the closure of another at Granollers, Spain, both in 2020. 

Evonik will, however, continue its betaine businesses in Europe, Asia and Latin America. It will also retain the rest of the Hopewell facility, which produces additives for polyurethane foam manufacture, plus agricultural and industrial applications.

Thailand’s Indorama Ventures (IVL) has completed its acquisition of 100% of Brazil-based Oxiteno from Ultrapar Participações, following approval by Brazil’s Administrative Council for Economic Defence. IVL said that the deal, first announced in August 2021, makes it “the leading surfactants producer in the Americas, with additional potential to expand in Europe and Asia”.

Verdant Specialty Solutions has acquired its US compatriot Baze Chemical from its founder, Curtis Baze. Terms were not disclosed. Baze is based at Odessa, Texas, employs 82 employees and mainly supplies ethoxylates for the oil and gas production, water treatment and mining industries.

Baze’s four facilities on the Gulf Coast include a 12,000 m² surfactants manufacturing and custom alkoxylation facility in Palestine, Texas, which opened in 2016. This has six flexible reactors for EO and PO, abundant storage and significant capacity for growth, Verdant said.

Indorama Ventures has acquired Brazilian firm Oxiteno from the Ultra Group in a $1.3 billion that should close in Q1 2022, subject to regulatory approvals and other closing conditions. This will bring a significantly extended business in high-value surfactants within the Integrated Oxides & Derivatives (IOD) business, as well as other speciality chemicals.

Houston-based Verdant Specialty Solutions has announced its first acquisitions since being sold by Solvay to OpenGate Capital in April and renamed, in the form of DeForest Enterprises and ParaFlow Energy Solutions from Chemical Services Group of Boca Raton, Florida. Terms were not disclosed.

DeForest is a specialty surfactants company with a range of chemistries including low-foam wetting agents, alkaline-, acid- chlorine- and peroxide-stable surfactants, high- and low-foam amphoteric surfactants, hydrotropes, water-soluble corrosion inhibitors and phosphate esters.

Cepsa, the world’s largest producer of linear alkylbenzene (LAB) and cumene, has begun operations at its first site to use Detal technology in place of hydrofluoric acid, in the Puente Mayorga chemical plant at San Roque in southern Spain. LAB is the most widely used biodegradable surfactant in laundry detergents.

Cepsa developed the patented Detal technology with UOP. This was named in the Spanish section of the 2020 European Business Awards for the Environment and also won a technological innovation award at the ICIS Surfactants Awards, among others.

Two recent acquisitions that are both largely focused in the personal care arena were both completed almost simultaneously. Solvay completed the sale of its amphoteric surfactant business to OpenGate Capital, while Ashland finalised that of the personal care business of Schülke & Mayr from investment firm EQT.