Monday, May 5, 2008

Rain To List PetCoke Subsidiary In US?

Hyderabad-based Rain Commodities, the world’s largest producer of Calcined Petroleum Coke (CPC), is looking at listing its wholly-owned subsidiary, Rain CII Carbon LLC in the US with a value of about $1.5 billion. Rain Commodities acquired the company in July last year for $595 million in an all-cash deal.

According to sources, Rain has begun to initiate the process of listing its Calcined Petroleum Coke subsidiary which had been on hold due to weak sentiment in the US markets.

T. Srinivasa Rao, vice president, finance, Rain CII Carbon (India) said there is no immediate plan for a foreign listing. “However, we may go for an overseas listing in the medium to long term,” he said.

With the acquisition of CII Carbon in a leveraged buy-out, Rain Commodities emerged as the world’s largest producer of Calcined Petroleum Coke with an annual capacity of 2.5 million tonnes (MT) and a 49 MW co-generation power plant. Rain Commodities acquired CII Carbon. In 2007, Rain CII alone produced roughly 2.2 MT of Calcined Petroleum Coke.

Analysts expect the Calcined Petroleum Coke market to remain strong for next 2-3 years, riding on increasing demand from aluminium industry. However there is a reluctance to set up new Calcined Petroleum Coke plants due to the scarcity of green petroleum coke (GPC), the raw material for Calcined Petroleum Coke; however, Rain CII is not affected as it has long-term contracts to procure GPC, which is a by-product of refineries.

Minerals And Metals at http://www.minerals-and-metals.com/

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