BUSINESS
CONCENTRATES Dow surges, DuPont plummets The two largest U.S. chemical companies went in opposite
directions in the third quarter, with Dow Chemical's earnings more than doubling from the same period in 2002 while DuFonPs results plunged. Dov/s earnings from continuing operations, excluding unusual items, rose 124% to $332 million on a 13% sales increase to $7.98 billion. DuPont's earningsfell66% to $135 million as sales increased 13% to $6.14billioa Raw material costs hurt both companies. Dow says purchased feedstock and energy costs rose 20%, or $465 million, compared with the same quarter last year, while DuPont says higher raw material costs reduced earnings by $200 million after taxes. DuPont's earnings exclude a $1.04 billion charge related to the anticipated sale of its Invista textiles and interiors unit. Including this and other unusual items, DuPont had a net loss of $873 million.
Degussa takes big charge in fine chemicals
Chevron Phillips says it will continue to follow Responsible Care and that it will participate in advocacy, long-range research, and children's health initiatives through other affiliations. Huntsman Corp. indicated injury that it would leave ACC by the end of the year.
floated recently near the firm's headquarters in Leverkusen, Germany. The helium-filled pumpkin is made possible through the use ofa membrane based on Bayer's Levapren ethylene-vinyl acetate rubber. Unlike conventional balloon rubber, Levapren is airtight and translucent. The pumpkin is illuminated by four 4,000-W lamps provided by the German firm Noëlle Industrielle.
Nova to close St. Clair line Nova Chemicals will shut
down the 275 million-lb-peryear linear low-density polyethylene line at its St. Clair River site in Ontario next year/Ihe "A-line" was the first LLDPE Degussa will take an impairplant in the world when it was ment charge in itsfinechemicompleted in 1960, Nova says. cals unit of nearly $600 milThe site's "B-line," a 325 million. Half of the sum is for lion-lb high-density unit, will goodwill from mergers and acremain open. Both plants use quisitions, and the other halffor Sclairtech technology, which other intangible assets. The gets its name from the St. Clair charge, which reflects what the River. Nova says 80% of the firm terms "significant changes in market conditions in the fine Bayer Polymers has a hand production from the Α-line will chemicals sector," will be ac- in what is being called the be transferred to other Nova companied byarearrangement world's biggest pumpkin, a 15- plants. ŒOJeffrey lipton says ofitsfineand industrial chemi- foot-wide illuminated orb that closing the Α-line will reduce fixed costs by $5 million to $10 cals division. The new divisionmillion per year. al structure will feature three new segments: building blocks, exchisive synthesis and catalysts, and peroxygen chemicals.
Bayer lights up Halloween
Cytec exits online venture
Chevron Phillips to leave ACC Chevron Phillips Chemical has resigned from the American Chemistry Council (ACC). CEO James L. (Jim) Gallogly says thefirmhas not ruled out a return to the association in the future. "However, there would have to be substantial improvement by the association in operational efficiency and advocacy efforts," he says. HTTP://WWW.CEN-ONLINE.ORG
Cytec Industries is leaving
the PolymerAdditives.com market-place that it established in 2000 with GE Specialty Chemicals andAlbemarle.The company which took a $1.7 mil lion charge related to the joint venture last year, says it will sell its polymer additives through its own website. Similarly, Crompton, which obtained GE's one-third stake in PolymerAdditives.com when it bought GE Specialty Chemi cals earlier this year, says it is also abandoning the online
brokerage in favor of its own order-fulfillmentplatfbrm.Akzo Nobel also sells through the website.
PolyOne selling off businesses In a bid to focus on its core
compounding, masterbatch, and plastics distribution busi nesses, PolyOne says it will sell businesses that generated near ly a quarter ofits 2002 sales. The businesses in elastomers and performance additives, engi neeredfilms,and specialty resins generated sales of $364 million, $153 million, and $100 million, respectively Moreover, PolyOne has reiterated that its stakes in the OxyVinyls joint venture with Occidental and the Sun belt chlor-alkali partnership with Olin are also noncore.
Dow Corning, Rohm and Haas form alliance Dow Corning and Rohm and
Haas havefoimedastrategical liance to provide materials and servicesforwound care, trans dermal and topical drug deliv ery, and related medical device applications. Dow Corning brings its silicon-based tech nology and health care prod ucts expertise to the alliance. Rohm and Haas brings acrylic and adhesives technology To gether, they hope to offer onestop product and applications development for health care customers.
Crompton to cut 375 employees Crompton will cut about 375
jobs, or 7% of its workforce, as part of a program to reap $40 million in annual pretax savings next year. The firm says it is C&EN
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27. 2003
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CONCENTRATES "right sizing" its support structurefollowingtheJuly sale ofits organosilicones business to GE. That move resulted in the transfer ofabout 1,200 employees to GE; Crompton added 230 employees when it bought GE's specialty chemicals business. The company expects the downsizing to lead to a cash charge in the range of $15 million to $18 million.
Merck agrees to drug deals Merck has signed agreements with two small companies to advance its pharmaceutical R&D. The drug firm has signed an exclusive research and commercialization license with fullerene-based drug developer C Sixty that covers drugs based on fullerene antioxidants in two unnamed therapeutic areas. Separately, Merck and Cèlera Diagnostics will work together to identify and validate genetic markersforuse in prognostic tests and therapeutics for cancer, initially focusing on breast cancer.
seeks out technologies that might serve national security interests.
DuPont boosting polyamide unit DuPont's engineering polymers unit will build a new plant to produce the base polymer used in its Zytel HTN polyamide resins. The 30 millionlb-per-year facility is being built at DuPont's Richmond,\fo., site and is scheduledforcompletion by the start of 2004. The firm says the expansion will more than double its capacityforthe base polymer. With double-digit annual growth, Zytel HTN is on "the frontier for replacement ofmetal and thermosets," says Clive Robertson, global business manager.
Takeda raises foreign output Takeda Chemical Industries
will close one of its plants in Japan and invest $135 million in one ofits two reniaining plants there. Once the change is complete, early in 2006,Takeda will produce between 70 and 80% of its pharmaceuticals outside Japan, up from about 50% currently Takeda operates facilities Nanosys has started up the first phase of a joint develop- in China, Italy, and Ireland. ment project supported by the Workers at the plant to be Defense Advanced Research closed, in Shonan, Kanagawa Projects Agency. The nano- prefecture, will be given jobs in the refurbished plant in Hikari, technologycompanywillwork with the research and engi- l^amagucMprcfecture.lakeda's neeringfirmSciperio; Pennsyl- main foreign plant in Ireland is vania State University; and the being expanded to produce acUniversity of Texas, Dallas, to tive pharmaceutical ingredients develop semiconductor tech- as well as the finished dosage nology for flexible electronic products it now makes. systems. The contract, totaling a possible $7.2 million, is being managed by the Air Force Research Laboratory Separately, Nanosys has signed a multi-million-dollar development deal While most major chemical with In-Q-Tel, a private group firms have long since abanfunded by the CIA. In-Q-Tel doned the textile fiber market,
Nanosys signs defense pacts
Dow to build fiber plant
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Dow Chemical plans to build its first commercial-scale textile fiber plant, in Tarragona, Spain. Scheduled for start-up in the third quarter of2004, the plant will produce XLAfiber,a spandexlike polyethylene monofilament the firm introduced about a year ago. Until now, Dow has supplied resins to Taiwanesefibermaker Hua Lon, which produces the fiberfortextile makers. XLA is produced using Dov/s Insite metallocene catalyst technology
Output mixed in September U.S. chemical production increased slightly in September from the previous month, but was offfrom September 2002, according to data from the Federal Reserve Board. The board
reports a seasonally adjusted production index for all chemicals of 105.7 (1997 = 100), onIndex, 1997=100 108
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ly 0.2% ahead of August and down 0.4% compared with September of last year. Chem ical plant capacity utilization thus rose to 74.4% in Septem ber from 74.3% in August. In September 2002, capacity use was 74.7%. Output in the im portant basic chemicals sector fell 0.2% from August to Sep tember to an index of 90.1 and was off 3.5% from the compa rable month a year agp.
BUSINESS ROUNDUP • Germany's Merck and Toyo
• Atofina will build a 3,000-
Aluminium plan to jointly de velop and launch innovative pigments for automotive paint. Merck will bring its pearl pig ments technology to the effort while theJapanesefirmwill contribute its aluminum flake know-how.
metric-ton-per-year organic peroxides plant in Changshu, a city on the eastern coast of Chi na. The plant will complement the company's other Asian fa cilities in South Korea, Japan, and India. • Roche and Evotec 0ΑΙ have
its name to Biotage once it com pletes its acquisition of Biotage (C&EN, Oct. 20, page 13).The company will also adopt a struc ture with two business areas: biosystems and discovery chemistry.
extended their partnership in drug discovery through a me dicinal chemistry collaboration to identify and develop a lead candidate for one of Roche's cancer targets. The agreement extends an earlier pact into the area of lead optimization.
• Canada's MethylGene has
• Cargill and the Department
entered a two-year oncology collaboration with Japan's Taiho Pharmaceuticals focused on small-molecule inhibitors of histone deacetylases. Taiho will pay the biotech firm $3.75 mil lion up front and up to $37.5 million in all if a successful prod uct results.
of Energy will collaborate to de velop industrial chemicals from soy and other oilseeds. The partners will invest $1.9 million apiece over two years; Cargill will also work with the catalyst technology company Materia (C&EN, Sept. 29, page 9) and two other partners.
• Pyrosequencing will change
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