Tata Chemicals acquires General Chemical Industrial Products for $1 billion

31 January 2008

India's largest soda ash maker, Tata Chemicals Ltd has acquired the US-based General Chemical Industrial Products Inc  (GCIP), among the top five global soda ash producers with interests in mining, for $1.005 billion.

GCIP is majority owned by investments and restructuring firm Harbinger Capital Partners. The transaction is subject to mandatory shareholder and regulatory approvals..

Currently the world's third largest soda ash maker with a combined 2.9-million tpa capacity from four plants - one in India and the others abroad - the acquisition of GCIP catapults Tata Chemicals to the position of the world's second largest soda ash maker.

It also enables Tata Chemicals to make over 50 per cent of its soda ash through the natural route, which is not only more economical for making soda ash than the synthetic route, but is also immune to commodity cycles as GCIP's subsidiary, General Chemical (Soda Ash) Partners (GCSAP), is a significant soda ash producer in the US with a capacity of 2.5 million TPA of natural soda ash.

One of the few global makers of natural soda ash, GCSAP has mining and manufacturing facilities located at Green River Basin in Wyoming in the US, which provides it access to the world's largest and most economically recoverable trona ore deposits that is then converted into natural soda ash.

The Green River facility comprises an underground trona mine where GCIP mines 4.5 million tonnes of ore annually and a 2.5-million tpa surface refining plant. The company owns a majority 75 per cent stake in the facility in partnership with OCI Chemical Corporation, FMC Corporation and Solvay Mineral.