Moody's lifts Lyondell, Equistar ratings

Moody's Investors Service said it raised the ratings of Lyondell Chemical Co. and Equistar Chemicals LP due to the substantial debt reduction over the past two years at the combined company and the likelihood that the company will be able to achieve its $3 billion debt reduction target by the end of 2007.

Moody's also affirmed the B1 ratings of Millennium Chemicals Inc. and Lyondell's SGL-2 speculative grade liquidity rating and assigned corporate family ratings to both Equistar and Millennium.

Additionally, the outlook for all three companies was changed to developing due to the potential sale of the Lyondell-CITGO Refining LP (LCR) joint venture.

Upgrades include Equistar's senior unsecured regular bond/debenture, upgraded to B1 from B2.

Upgrades for Lyondell include its corporate family rating to Ba3 from B1; senior secured regular bond/debenture to Ba3 from B1; senior subordinated regular bond/debenture to B2 from B3; and senior unsecured regular bond/debenture to B1 from B2.

Upgrades also include Lyondell's senior unsecured regular bond/debenture to Ba3 from B1.

Lyondell's Ba3 ratings reflect the significant volatility in earnings and cash flow due to the commodity nature of the company's products and its exposure to volatile petroleum and petrochemical feedstocks, Moody's noted.

The ratings are supported by a fairly diverse business portfolio, including the operations of Equistar and Millennium and leading market shares in several commodity petrochemicals.

© 2015 Prospect News.
All content on this website is protected by copyright law in the U.S. and elsewhere. For the use of the person downloading only.
Redistribution and copying are prohibited by law without written permission in advance from Prospect News.
Redistribution or copying includes e-mailing, printing multiple copies or any other form of reproduction.