Celanese closes 2 plants in Europe

Celanese Corporation announced that the consultation process has been completed by its French subsidiary with their employee delegates in Roussillon, France, and by its Spanish subsidiary with the work council in Tarragona, Spain. Both consultation processes were initiated in November 2013.

These consultations have resulted in negotiated and approved redundancy and social plans for the affected employees. The social plans include measures aimed at minimizing the effects of the facility closures on the workforces at Roussillon and Tarragona. The measures of assistance include providing training, outplacement and severance.

The company will cease all manufacturing operations and associated activities at the acetic anhydride plant in Roussillon and at the vinyl acetate monomer (VAM) unit in Tarragona by the end of 2013, and Celanese will proceed to decommission both facilities.

As a result of the Roussillon site closure and the Tarragona VAM unit closure, Celanese expects to record personnel-related exit costs and other facility-related shutdown costs in the range of US$100-110 million, including approximately US$35-45 million of non-cash asset impairments, primarily in the fourth quarter of 2013. These expenses will be excluded from the company's adjusted earnings per share and adjusted EBIT performance measures. The related cash outflows will occur over a one-year period. Celanese expects savings from these closures to be in the range of US$20-30 million in 2014.

The need for these closure projects emerged from an assessment of Celanese's overall corporate strategy, which included an assessment of the company's global manufacturing facilities. Specifically, in support of the company's acetyl portfolio, the manufacturing footprint strategy favors integrated production sites that provide critical economies of scale.