29/12/2005 (Agence Europe) - The European Commission has cleared the planned acquisition of French undertaking Société du Craqueur de l'Aubette (“SCA”), a butadiene plant located in France, and related customer agreements, by Basell Holdings B.V. (“Basell”) of The Netherlands, a polyolefin producer belonging to the Access Industries group of the United States. SCA owns a cracker in Aubette, France, and principally produces ethylene and propylene. It is currently jointly controlled by Basell and Shell Pétrochimie Méditerranée (“SPM”), part of the Shell group. The Commission's examination of the deal revealed that the horizontal and vertical overlaps between the activities of Basell (and TNK-BP and Slavneft) and SCA relate to markets where the combined market shares at the Western European level are limited and where Basell will continue to face several effective competitors.