Celanese to cease operations at two European facilities

Celanese Corporation will shut down its two European facilities in Roussillon (France) and Tarragona (Spain). The company announced that the consultation process has been completed by its French subsidiary with their employee delegates in Roussillon and by its Spanish subsidiary with the work council in Tarragona. Both consultation processes were initiated in November 2013.
 
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.
 
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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 favours integrated production sites that provide critical economies of scale.
 
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 $100-110 million, including approximately $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 $20-30 million in 2014.