The Proposed Capital Program
Morris had assumed responsibility for the Merseyside Works only 12 months previously, following a rapid from the entry position of shift engineer nine years before. When she assumed responsibility, she undertook a detailed review of the operations and discovered significant opportunities for improvement in polypropylene production. Some of those opportunities stemmed from the deferral of maintenance over the preceding five years. In an effort the operating results of Merseyside Works, the previous manager had limited capital expenditures to only the most essential. Now what previously had been routine and deferrable was becoming essential. Other opportunities stemmed from correcting the antiquated plant design in ways that would save energy and improve the process flow :( 1) relocating and modernizing tankcar unloading areas, which would enable the process flow to be streamlined; (2) refurbishing the polymerization tank to achieve higher pressures and thus greater throughput; and (3) renovating the compounding plant to increase extrusion throughput and obtain energy savings.
Morris proposed an expenditure of GBP 12 million on this program. The entire polymerization line would need to be shut down for 45 days, however, and because the Rotterdam plant was operating near capacity. Merseyside Works’ customer would buy from competitors. Greystock believed the loss of customer would not be permanent the benefits would be a lower energy requirement as well as a 7% greater manufacturing throughput. In addition, the project was expected to improve gross margin (before depreciation and energy savings) form 11.5%. The engineering group at Merseyside Works was highly confident that the efficiencies would be realized.
Merseyside Works currently produced 250,000 metric tons of polypropylene pellets a year. Currently, the price of polypropylene averaged GBP675 per ton for Victoria Chemicals’ product mix. The tax rate required in capital-expenditure analyses was 30%. Greystock discovered that any plant facilities to be replaced had been completely depreciated. New assets could be depreciated on an accelerated basis over 15 years, the expected life of the assets. The increased throughput would necessitate an increase of work-in-process inventory equal in value to 3.0% of cost of goods. Greystock included in the first year of his forecast preliminary engineering costs of GBP500, 000 spent over the preceding nine months on efficiency and design studies of the renovation. Finally, the corporate manual stipulated that overhead costs be reflected in project analyses at the rate of 3.5% times the book value of assets acquired in the project per year.
Greystock had produced the discounted-cash-flow (DCF) summary given in Exhibit 2. It suggested that the capital program would easily hurdle Victoria Chemicals’ required return of 10% for engineering projects.