On November 15, Cabot, a global carbon black industry giant, announced that it has signed a definitive agreement to acquire its Tokai Carbon (Tianjin) Co. 

It is understood that the acquisition will cost Cabot $9 million (approximately $57 million).

The Tokai Carbon (Tianjin) plant, which is located next to Cabot's Tianjin carbon black and masterbatch plant, was put into operation in 2006.

The plant has an existing annual capacity of 50,000 tons, which Cabot will upgrade to produce conductive carbon black additive products for lithium batteries, a high-growth, high-performance product market. At the same time, it will continue to supply existing carbon black reinforcing material customers.

The parties expect to complete the transaction in the first quarter of 2022.

This is another Cabot acquisition in China three years after the acquisition of the Xuzhou plant by Nippon Chemi-Carbon Corporation, a subsidiary of Nippon Steel & Sumitomo Metal Group in Japan, on October 1, 2018.

Cabot Performance Materials (Xuzhou) Co., Ltd. is Cabot's first wholly-owned production plant in China, with an upgrade capital of RMB 400 million, the project is scheduled to be put into operation in 2021, and the production capacity of special carbon black products will reach 50,000 tons/year.