ing operations. It is about a quarter way through a 14-month program for developing a method to bring the phosphate to the surface as a slurry. The method is somewhat similar to those for recovering petroleum, sulfur, or salt. Magnet Cove is trying about five separate drilling techniques—none of which it will talk about very much. It has trained local drilling crews, and drills from a barge. The company is not tied to underwater operation, but uses the barge because of the ease of moving the drilling rig from one location to another. The company has an option of 16,000 acres on the bottom of the Pungo River, a tributary of Pamlico River, and on adjacent land. The phosphate is deep—over 200 feet. By the end of 14 months, Magnet Cove should know whether it is possible to remove the phosphate by this method at a cost limit it has set for itself. Removal of phosphate ore as a slurry by drilling methods has not been done before, and will require the solution of a number of problems. But Magnet Cove is a subsidiary of Dresser Industries, a company well experienced in drilling operations and making drilling equipment. Unlike Florida rock, which contains pebbles, the North Carolina ore consists of finely divided material. Marketing. The North Carolina deposits are located in a position to compete advantageously in markets that now account for half the agricultural phosphate in the United States. The Florida deposits are farther away from most of the phosphate marketing areas on the East Coast. The three companies now active in North Carolina phosphate studies are all well set up with marketing outlets. American Agricultural Chemical Co. (recently taken over by Continental Oil) and Smith-Douglass are both old established fertilizer companies, which will be able to sell and distribute the output from their respective joint operations. Texas Gulf Sulphur sells much of its sulfur to the fertilizer industry, and has recently taken the first step in a broad diversification program into other basic raw materials. Construction of its new $35-million potash mine and mill at Moab, Utah, is now in its final phase. Adding one more basic fertilizer material, phosphate, to its line will fit in well with TGS's marketing and distribution network. 32
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15,
1963
Commercial Strategic-Udy Unit Operating Start-up problems are being resolved; Venezuelan steel firm expects it to produce 400 tons a day of iron The first commercial plant for producing iron by the Strategic-Udy process is now in operation near Matanzas, Venezuela, according to Koppers Co. Despite electrical and mechanical start-up problems that are being rapidly resolved, the process is sound and the unit is expected to achieve its rated capacity of 400 tons per day, according to George M. Walker, executive vice president of Koppers. Installed at the Orinco steel plant of the Corporacion Venezolana de Guayana (CVG), the Strategic-Udy process uses a variety of iron ores, including complex or low-grade ores, and Venezuelan coal, rather than imported coke required in the conventional blast furnace process (C&EN, June 4, 1962, page 18). Iron ore is "selectively reduced" to iron in the Strategic-Udy process. At the Orinco plant, eastern Venezuelan iron ore, coal, and fluxing materials are fed to a kiln where partial reduction takes place. The kiln product, while still hot, is transferred directly to an electric furnace for final smelting into pig iron for Corporacion Venezolana de Guayana open-hearth steelmaking furnaces. Strategic Materials Corp., Buffalo, N.Y., developed the Strategic-Udy process. Koppers manages the firm under a debt readjustment plan adopted by Strategic Materials' stockholders at their annual meeting on Feb. 15 (C&EN, Jan. 21, page 21). Koppers owns about 4% of the common stock of Strategic Materials. Strategic Materials is a holding company with subsidiaries engaged in the fields of iron, ferroalloy, and alumina leaching developments. The Strategic-Udy process is particularly well suited for use by newly developing countries, according to Koppers. Countries seeking to build a base for industrialization through the creation of an integrated iron and steel industry are potential customers. Koppers cites the following important advantages for underdeveloped countries which might think of adopting the process.
• Coking coal is not necessary. The Strategic-Udy process can use lowgrade coal, lignite, and other sources of carbon. • Strategic-Udy units can be built to operate efficiently in capacities ranging down to 200 tons per day of iron. This is far below the minimum considered practical for the economical operation of more conventional blast furnaces. • The process uses a wide variety of iron ores, including substandard ores. In addition, iron ore "fines,'' not usable in any conventional smelting process unless they are agglomerated, are ideally suited for use in the StrategicUdy process. The Orinco mill has an annual capacity of between 750,000 and 800,000 metric tons of ingot steel and 600,000 metric tons of finished steel products (seamless pipe, billets, galvanized wire, barbed wire, and various shapes). The plant has nine electric smelting furnaces, one of which has been converted to the Strategic-Udy process. It also has four 250-ton openhearth furnaces, a slabbing and blooming mill, a billet mill, a merchant mill, a seamless pipe mill, a wire mill, and a foundry. The Strategic-Udy unit consists of a 33,000-kva. modified electric smelting furnace and 35-foot prereduction rotary kiln. Addition of the kiln doubled the rated capacity of the electric smelting furnace, according to Koppers engineers. Koppers and Strategic Materials have had a joint development program since 1957. To date, more than 50 different iron ores of various types have been smelted at the pilot and semiworks plants operated by Strategic Materials at Niagara Falls, N.Y., and Niagara Falls, Canada. Koppers holds the exclusive, worldwide rights to design and build plants using the Strategic-Udy process. However, no other Strategic-Udy plants are currently under construction, according to a spokesman for the firm.
Monsanto Buys Process To Make Rigid Plastic Containers Obtains U.S. rights from Hoffco, S.A., a Swiss firm Monsanto has obtained U.S. rights to a new process for rigid plastic containers from Hoffco, S.A., Geneva, Switzerland. Monsanto plans to develop and sell products of the process through its plastics division. Hoffco's fabricating system is used in Europe to make containers for milk, drugs, cosmetics, household cleaning products, fruit drinks, and other highvolume products. Monsanto expects to use the system mostly on highimpact polystyrene but says it can be adapted to any thermoplastic. The company describes the system as "a modified plug-assist thermoforming process." To develop and sell the packaging products of the Hoffco system, Monsanto has formed a packaging marketing group within the marketing department of its plastics division. Luigi A. Contini, St. Louis, formerly director of advertising and marketing research and development for the department, has been appointed director of salespackaging for the new group. Eli. A. Haddad, of Springfield, Mass., has been appointed technical managerpackaging; Arthur J. Raiche, St. Louis, market manager-packaging; and Salvatore C. Mineo, New York, market supervisor-packaging. J. R. Eck, Monsanto vice president and general manager of the plastics division, says that these technical and marketing moves underscore Monsanto's interest and stake in new packaging markets and will bolster its position as a major supplier of plastic products for packaging. The Plax Co. department of Monsanto also produces plastic packaging products. Mr. Eck points out that the plastics division's new fabricating system is expected to complement and expand the containerdesign possibilities of the Plax-developed blow-molded line of packaging products. Design Flexibility. Mr. Contini, who will be responsible for the development, sales, and administration of fabricated products made by the Hoffco system, says the system is designed primarily for the production of negative-angle, medium-, and widemouth containers. Negative-angle
containers have a broad base and taper upward to a narrower top. The containers use either conventional or specially designed closures. Mr. Contini says the equipment and process permit economic production. He says also that the system will give Monsanto a product design flexibility that is currently unavailable in commercial processes for making rigid plastic containers. In evaluating the system, Monsanto was assisted by Dr. Norman Zweibel. He directed the technical and development work performed for Monsanto in the U.S. by Plastic Enterprises, Inc., College Point, N.Y. Technical support for the packaging function will be provided by Mr. Haddad and by the fabricated products group of the plastics division's engineering and development department. In Europe, Hoffco produces both the containers and the equipment to make them. Its chief products are small containers for dairy products.
Carbide Metals Plant Struck OCAW wants across-theboard increase of 8 cents an hour at West Virginia plant Members of the Oil, Chemical and Atomic Workers Union have struck Union Carbide's ferroalloy plant at Alloy, W.Va. The union is asking an across-the-board 8-cent-an-hour wage increase in a midcontract wage reopener. The current two-year contract expires May 3 1 , 1964. The plant, operated by Union Carbide Metals Co., makes alloys of chromium, manganese, silicon, zirconium, vanadium, and other metals for the steel and metals industries. More than 1000 workers are affected by the strike, the first strike at the plant since 1946. Earlier, Carbide announced it would shut down two of the plant's furnaces, idling 164 workers, because of reduced orders. Carbide says the slight reduction in steel production prompted the layoff plans. Another Carbide ferroalloy plant, at Niagara Falls, N.Y., will start phasing out of ferroalloy production early next year (C&EN, June 3, page 3 4 ) . This plant, hurt by ferroalloy imports, will completely close down by the end of next year.
ELECTRONIC VOICE IN THE WILDERNESS Dad was overjoyed as a boy if his crystal set worked even a short distance from home. Today, he can rely on his portable radio (or even TV) out in the woods . . . or enjoy the whole world of electronics in his backyard. Mallinckrodt's electronic specialties make this possible: acids, solvents, diffusants, acetates, carbonates, fluorides, oxides and phosphates used in tubes, capacitors, resistors, printed circuits, batteries and micromodules.
Confronted with increasing problems of high purity, the electronic i n d u s t r y t u r n s to Mallinckrodt . . . m a s t e r s of the a r t and science of purity. If your product requires high p u r i t y — for a profit, w r i t e : I n d u s t r i a l Chemicals Division, Mallinckrodt Chemical Works, St. Louis 47, Missouri. LINKING CHEMISTRY TO INDUSTRY
cJfaMfuAfot/^ I N D U S T R I A L CHEMICALS D I V I S I O N St. Louis · New Y o r k · Montreal JULY
15,
1963
C&EN
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