Business Concentrates PETROCHEMICALS
▸ Activists raise stake in Clariant Investors who are opposed to Clariant’s planned merger with Huntsman Corp. have raised their ownership stake in Clariant to more than 10% from 7.2% previously. The stake is held by White Tale Holdings, which comprises the investment funds 40 North and Corvex. The funds, in turn, are controlled by three New York Citybased investors. When disclosing their 7.2% stake earlier this month, the investors complained that a merger with Huntsman would reverse Clariant’s specialty chemical strategy.—MICHAEL MCCOY
Mideast complex advances Abu Dhabi National Oil Co. (ADNOC) and Borealis are moving forward with engineering and design for the Borouge 4 petrochemical complex in Abu Dhabi. The project will consist of a mixed-feedstock ethylene cracker, polyolefins plants, and plants for derivatives beyond polyolefins. It will be integrated with an ADNOC refinery in Ruwais, United Arab Emirates. Borouge, a joint venture owned 60% by ADNOC and 40% by Borealis, has already constructed three petrochemical complexes. The most recent one, Borouge 3, started up last year. The current facilities have a total capacity of 4.5 million metric tons per year and about $4 billion in annual sales. Borouge 4, when it starts up around 2023, will bring capacity up to nearly 10 million metric tons. Because it will use mixed feedstocks, such as naphtha from the refinery, Borealis CEO Mark Garrett has called it “by far the most ambitious petrochemicals project that we, or ADNOC, have ever undertaken.” In addition to the new complex, the partners have agreed to add another polypropylene plant to Borouge 3.—ALEX TULLO
ENERGY STORAGE
BIOBASED CHEMICALS
▸ SQM invests outside Chile for lithium
▸ Avantium picks site for pilot biorefinery
Chilean lithium producer SQM is investing in mines and plants outside its home base as demand for lithium for electric-car batteries grows. Its brine extraction joint venture in Argentina’s Salar de Cauchari, with Canada’s Lithium Americas, has moved to the engineering phase. In a new project, the company will jointly develop a spodumene mine in Western Australia with Kidman Resources. The two projects will add a combined 65,000 metric tons of lithium carbonate-equivalent capacity by 2021. Demand for lithium is growing by 14% per year, SQM says, and will exceed 500,000 metric tons by 2025.—MELODY
The Dutch biobased chemical maker Avantium will locate a pilot plant for its Zambezi biorefining process at Chemport Europe, an industrial park at AkzoNobel’s site in Delfzijl, the Netherlands. The Zambezi process is intended to convert wood chips into glucose, lignin, and a mixed-sugar syrup as raw materials for the chemical industry. Last year, Avantium formed a joint venture with BASF to develop a biobased process for making polyester bottle resin.—MICHAEL MCCOY
BOMGARDNER
TRADE
▸ Duty imposed on glycine imports Geo Specialty Chemicals successfully petitioned the Office of the U.S. Trade Representative to remove glycine from the U.S. Generalized System of Preferences (GSP) program. Removal subjects the compound to a 4.2% import duty. Geo, which claims to be the largest U.S. maker of glycine, says the action will prevent Chinese producers from exporting the chemical through countries such as India and Thailand that are GSP beneficiaries.—MARC REISCH
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POLYMERS
▸ Nylon instrumental in new harp string Evonik Industries and the Chinese filament maker NTEC have jointly developed a monofilament designed for instrument strings. Based on Evonik’s nylon 6,12, the
Evonik and NTEC developed their new monofilament for harps.
filament offers transparency for clarity and tone and a smooth surface for musician dexterity, Evonik says. The filament was developed for harp strings, the firm adds, but can be used to make strings for other plucked instruments.—MICHAEL MCCOY
INVESTMENT
▸ AkzoNobel adds to China peroxide plan AkzoNobel plans to double production capacity at an organic peroxide plant that it opened in October in Ningbo, eastern China. The company had started work to boost capacity by 40%, but it now plans to double the size. The plant is already the world’s largest producer of dicumyl peroxide, a material that strengthens polymers used in applications such as shoe soles and high-voltage cables. AkzoNobel is also building a peroxide plant in Tianjin, northern China.—JEAN-FRANÇOIS
TREMBLAY
INTELLECTUAL PROPERTY
▸ Merck to pay Gilead’s lawyer fees A California federal judge has ordered Merck & Co. to pay Gilead Sciences $14 million in attorney fees in a case involving Gilead’s Sovaldi and Harvoni hepatitis C virus treatments. In June 2016, the judge overturned a $200 million jury award
C R E D I T: SA L A D O R EC
MERGERS & ACQUISITIONS
