abu dhabi national oil company (adnoc) said it was willing to raise its informal takeover bid for german plastics and chemicals maker to 60 euros per share, valuing it at $12.6 billion. adnoc raised its unofficial takeover offer to 57 euros per share last time in july this year, but no final decision was made at that time.
adnoc has shown a willingness to go on a massive m&a spree. it is in separate talks with austria's omv about a possible merger of the two companies that could form a $30 billion entity.
it was unclear why adnoc was interested in buying . sluggish consumer demand and the ramp-up of new plants over the past few years mean petrochemical margins face a long-term decline. with the current glut of chemicals, big oil companies are looking for other areas to invest.
over the past decade, major oil companies have relied on petrochemicals as a growth engine, a hedge against falling oil and gas prices and a long-term driver of growth amid the transition to clean energy. previously, industry players predicted that real growth in oil demand over the next few decades would be driven primarily by growth in demand for petrochemicals. in fact, energy intelligence is not the only petrochemical industry bullish, with no less than 10 organizations including opec, exxon mobil and the u.s. energy information administration (eia) predicting that global oil demand will actually grow in the next few decades, not like demand will shrink as most analysts predict.
