BP and NOVA Chemicals Form European Styrenics Joint Venture

摘要

BP,Inc.(Warrenville IL;www.bp.com) and NOVA Chemicals Corp.(Pittsburgh,PA;www.novachemicals.com) have agreed to merge their European styrenic polymers businesses into a 50:50 joint venture named NOVA Innovene.This new firm will begin operating in the third quarter of 2005.Meanwhile,NOVA Chemicals International S.A.is licensing its Novacat catalyst technology to Westlake Petrochemicals LP (Houston,TX;www.westlakegroup.com) for use in the production of linear low-density polyethylene (PE).Co-developed by NOVA Chemicals and Innovene,formerly BP Petrochemicals,these Ziegler-Natta catalysts enable gas-phase PE manufacturers to generate a full range of butene and hexene resins that improve the performance in a variety of applications.