Mumbai: Zoltek Companies, Inc. has acquired the Crysel acrylic fibre manufacturing unit of Cydsa, a listed Mexican chemical and industrial company, for around $100 million.

Bridgeton-based Zoltek plans to retool and modify the newly acquired facility at Guadalajara, Mexico to supply Zoltek''s North American operations with low-cost precursor, the principal raw material used in manufacturing carbon fibres.

Zoltek expects the facility will serve as a site for additional carbon fibre production lines supporting Zoltek''s strategic goal of achieving $500 million in annual sales of its high-performance commercial grade carbon fibres by fiscal year 2011, the company said in a release.

Zoltek will use a portion of the proceeds of its August 2007 secondary common stock offering, along with cash from operations, to fund the acquisition and further investments in the facility. Zoltek expects precursor production to begin by the end of fiscal 2008.

"The new facility in Guadalajara represents the fastest and lowest cost alternative to increasing our precursor capacity and is a key building block in ramping up carbon fibre production in North America over the next several years," said Zoltek''s chairman and chief executive Zsolt Rumy.

"Instead of having to ship precursor material from our plant in Hungary to our facilities in Texas and Missouri, we will be able to truck this material overland from Guadalajara. Similarly, we anticipate significant cost savings when we produce carbon fibres at the Mexican facility, " he said, adding technical personnel from the plant have been collaborating with Zoltek production and engineering teams for the past few months to get a head start on the retooling and modifications.

Cydsa''s acrylic fibre manufacturing facilities in Guadalajara have been idled since January 2006 due to an oversupply of acrylic fibres for the global textile market. Zoltek''s plan is to initially activate 20,000 tonnes of annual precursor production and at the same time install 2,250 tonnes of annual rated carbon fibres capacity at this facility.

Zoltek expects that the Mexican facility ultimately will support annual production of 60,000 tons of precursor material, which, in turn, will support production of more than 27,000 metric tons of carbon fibres - or the equivalent of over $600 million in carbon fibre sales at today''s price level for high-performance commercial carbon fibres.

With Zoltek''s current expansion project in Hungary, scheduled for completion by the end of calendar year 2007, and the completion of the initial phase of the Mexican expansion, Zoltek estimates it will have an annual capacity to produce 40,000 tons of precursor, 13,050 tons of carbon fibre and 4,500 tons of oxidized acrylic fibres.