INTERNATIONAL
Angola Builds New Cellulose Plant Portuguese African territories are gradually adding more industry to their predominantly agricultural economies The first phase of a new cellulose project has almost been completed in Angola. It will have a daily output of 75 tons of wood pulp, 10 tons of pulp from agricultural wastes and other sources, and 25 tons per day of paper products of various sorts, including multiwall kraft bags. The plant will include chlor-alkali facilities, with an output of 4.5 tons per day of chlorine, 5.1 tons of 50% caustic soda, as well as hydrochloric acid and sodium hypochlorite. This plant is one of very few representatives of the chemical process industries in Portugal's two big provinces in southern Africa—Angola on the west coast, and Mozambique, or Portuguese East Africa, on the opposite side of the continent. Together, the two territories are almost as big as Alaska and Texas combined. Angola has about 4.5 million people, and Mozambique about 6.3 million. All are native Africans with the exception of a very few—fewer than 100,000 in each province are European, Indian, or educated Africans who have been officially "assimilated" as full Portuguese citizens. The big exports of both territories are agricultural: sugar, cotton, cashew nuts, tea, copra, sisal, coffee, and other products from both tropical and temperate areas. Angola has a number of mineral resources: copper—probably part of the same deposits mined across the border in Katanga—iron, manganese, diamonds, bauxite, coal, and some petroleum. The cellulose project is based on local raw material. The main one is eucalyptus wood. There is also a local market for the products. In a second phase the project will be expanded to produce 100 tons per day of pulp, and to add facilities for making large and small paper bags, cartons, boxes, gummed paper, wax paper, and crepe paper. Big Plans. Several large projects have been planned, but are not yet started. Ahiminio Portuges (Angola) S.A.R.L., has been authorized to build 96
C&EN JAN. 2 2, 1962
an aluminum facility in Angola. In the first phase this installation would produce 20,000 metric tons per year, and later on 50,000 to 60,000 metric tons of aluminum per year from imported alumina. The second phase of the project calls for setting up facilities for making the alumina from bauxite. This would be imported at first, but gradually the plant would switch over to bauxite from Angola's own deposits. The project would depend on cheap power from a dam to be built at Cambambe, near Dondo on the Cuanza River. The big difficulty in getting such a large project under way is to be able to get enough big power consuming industries—such as ferroalloys, or fertilizer materials—together to justify building the large dam. Companhia dos Azotados de Angola S.A.R.L., Luanda, Angola, has been authorized to build a nitrogen fertilizer plant, based on production of 120 tons per day of ammonia from Bunker C fuel oil. Ammonium sulfate, ammonium nitrate, and urea will be among the products. The Portuguese are also investigating the possibilities of exploiting phosphate deposits in Angola. Proved reserves in the district of Cabinda are 3.3 million metric tons. Cabinda is a small enclave on the Atlantic coast separated from the rest of Angola by a 25-mile strip of the former Belgian Congo at the mouth of the Congo River. The estimate for unproved reserves is 12.6 million tons. Petroleum. There is a new petroleum refinery at Matola in Mozambique, and one at Luanda, in Angola. The one at Luanda processed 180,000 metric tons of crude in 1 9 6 0 of which 65,000 metric tons came from Angola's own oil wells. The main market for the products of this refinery is the Luanda area. Exploration by Cabinda Gulf Oil Co. indicates that there are appreciable quantities of good quality petroleum in Angola. Local markets support a number of smaller industries. For example, in Mozambique, Companhia Industrial de
Plasticos, Lda., fabricates plastics, and several other companies plan to enter this field. In Luanda, Angola Industrial, S.A.R.L., produces 500 tons per year of paints and varnishes for the domestic market, and exports another 300 tons. There are a number of formulators of pesticides, detergents, and disinfectants in both provinces. Imports of insecticide materials in 1960 ran $266,000 for Angola, and $415,000 for Mozambique. Both provinces are interested in attracting outside investors. Angola, for example, is especially interested in manufacturing some of its own pharmaceuticals. The province imported $680,000 worth of antibiotics in 1960. Mozambique imported $2.3 million worth of all types of pharmaceuticals that year. Angola is also interested in additional paper mills.
BRIEFS Hellenic Chemical Products and Fertilizer Co. and the French company, Saint-Gobain, will team up in a jointly-held company which will build two plants for fertilizers and heavy chemicals in Greece. One will be at Piraeus and the other at Kavalla in northern Greece. By 1964 the complex of plants owned by the new joint company and by Hellenic Chemical Products and Fertilizer at Piraeus will have capacity for 250,000 tons per year of sulfuric acid, 40,000 tons of phosphoric acid, and 350,000 tons of fertilizers.
Badger Manufacturing Co.'s Dutch affiliate will be the main contractor for construction of Esso Nederland's new aromatics plant near Rotterdam. Initial capacity of the plant will be 220,000 metric tons per year. Construction will begin early this year and should be completed by the last half of 1963.
British Hydrocarbon Chemicals now has three new plants in operation at its Grangemouth, Scotland, works. They are the ethylene dichloride plant, the methanol plant, and the second butadiene extraction unit. BHC is jointly owned by Distillers Company, Ltd., and British Petroleum. Raw material comes from the adjacent BP refinery.
