Khaitan & Co recently acted for SIBUR, Eastern Europe's largest petrochemical company, in a $450 million joint venture with Indian conglomerate Reliance Industries (RIL) to form Reliance Sibur Elastomers Private Ltd. The new company is expected to be the first manufacturer of butyl rubber in India, and the fourth-largest supplier of butyl rubber in the world.
The joint venture, which will produce 100,000 tonnes of butyl rubber a year in Jamnagar, India, is expected to meet the demand of over 75,000 tonnes of synthetic rubber from the Indian automotive industry every year. RIL's share in the venture will total 74.9 percent, while SIBUR will account for the remainder. The rubber production facility is expected to be commissioned sometime in mid 2014.
Russia’s SIBUR operates across the entire petrochemical process chain, starting from gas processing to the production of monomers, plastics and synthetic rubbers, in addition to the processing of plastics. Aside from advising on the JV, Khaitan, which acted as the Indian legal counsel to the Russian company, also advised it on the licensing of its proprietary butyl rubber production technology to the newly formed company.
The Khaitan team was led by Mumbai-based corporate partner Aakash Choubey and direct tax partner Daksha Baxi. Herbert Smith, led by Moscow partner Nicholas Moore, acted as the international legal advisors to SIBUR, while RIL’s in-house legal team represented the conglomerate. ALB
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