EVERY DECEMBER SINCE the early 1990s, Millennium the world's second largest TiO_2 pigment producer has hosted a seminar for the European press corps, presenting an end-of-year state-of-play review of the industry, highlighting trends in supply, demand, inventories and prices. Under new ownership, the tradition has been maintained, the 2007 venue being Vienna. In fact, the change in ownership of Millennium was one of the big events of the year. On 16 May 2007, the National Titanium Dioxide Co. (NTDC, of Jeddah, Saudi Arabia) formally completed the acquisition of the entire business and assets of Millennium Inorganic Chemicals, paying Lyondell Chemical 1,100 million dollars. cash and taking on about 200 million dollars. worth of outstanding debt. NTDC already operated a 100,000 tpa TiO_2 plant at Yanbu on the Red Sea coast of Saudi Arabia. From Lyondell, it acquired 675,000 tpa of TiO_2 capacity, based on eight plants in five different countries.
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