Croatian Dioki submits bid to buy Vinyls Italia sites

29-Oct-10

Croatian petrochemical producer Dioki has submitted a bid before the October 22 deadline to buy the Ravenna and Porto Torres sites of Eni-owned Vinyls Italia, as per Platts. Vinyls Italia, formerly belonging to UK-based Ineos, went into receivership in May 2009, forcing the closure of production facilities for polyvinyl chloride and other related products in Ravenna, Porto Maghera and Porto Torres, all in Italy. The government's industrial development ministry has since tried to sell the three sites through international tenders. A previous attempt to sell the assets fell through in May this year when Qatari engineering company Ramco Trading and Contracting pulled out of the negotiations. As part of the tender and in order to help push through the sale, Vinyls Italia's parent company Eni said it would supply vital raw materials and cede necessary assets to ensure a restart of the plants. Since Dioki has no PVC production capacity, the acquisition of the Italian sites would make strategic sense, giving it a vertically-integrated outlet.