î BUSINESS CONCENTRATES Monsanto buys Chevron's lawn and garden business Monsanto has bought Chevron Chemical's Ortho Consumer Products Division, which produces lawn and garden products, for about $416 million, including working capital. To complete the transaction, Monsanto agreed to a Federal Trade Commission request that the company divest certain assets, including Ortho's Kleenup herbicide line, within one year. FTC believes that the acquisition would substantially lessen competition by giving Monsanto both Kleenup and its own Roundup product lines, with an estimated 85% of the U.S. residential herbicide market. Monsanto will merge the Ortho business with its own Residential Products Division and call the combined business Solaris Group, as part of its Agricultural Group. About 12 Monsanto employees will relocate to join the new business at Ortho's existing headquarters in San Ramon, Calif. The transaction also includes a manufacturing facility in Fort Madison, Iowa. Chevron will keep its Maryland Heights, Mo., facility, which employs about 175 people, and will toll manufacture products for Monsanto. Of about 400 remaining former Ortho employees, approximately 300 have been offered employment with Monsanto.
Pa., refinery. Sun also has committed funds to begin building a new unit at its own Marcus Hook facility to convert benzene to cyclohexane. The new 34 million-galper-year unit is expected to be completed during fourthquarter 1994.
Organic peroxides unit being built by Elf Atochem The Fine Chemicals Group of Elf Atochem North America has begun construction of a more than $22 million, 20 million-lb-per-year organic peroxides unit in Crosby, Tex., to supplement output at its existing manufacturing facility at the same site. Sandy Stromberg, marketing services manager for the organic peroxides business unit, says production of commercially salable product likely will begin in about the second half of 1994. The new facility will more than double the company's existing organic peroxides capacity in Crosby, says Stromberg, and will provide product for the growing organic peroxides initiators market. Organic peroxides are used in the polymerization of ethylene, vinyl chloride, styrène, and acrylic monomer, and for the curing of polyesters and elastomers.
Nalco completes sale of adhesives subsidiary
April chemical prices up less than 1% this year U.S. chemical prices, which have Index, 1982 = 100 barely budged since January, 128 rose only marginally in April from March and are up only 2% from a year earlier. According to 126 the latest data from the Labor Department, the producer price index for chemicals and allied products in April was 127.4 (1982 124 = 100). For the first four months ;MVI J J A S O N D J F M /V 1992 ' 1993 of 1993, prices for chemicals and allied products have risen a scant 0.2%, and if the data for the first four months of the year are annualized, prices are rising a mere 0.7% per year. For the major subcategory of industrial chemicals, the price index was 115.2 in April, down 0.5% from March and down 1.1% from April 1992. In March, the index was down 0.7% from February and down 0.8% from March 1992. 1
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Nalco Chemical, Naperville, 111., has completed the sale of its wholly owned subsidiary, Adco Products, through a management-led buyout. Details of the transaction have not been made public. The business was sold to a group led by Bradford Ventures, a New York-based investment firm, and Adco management. Based in Jackson, Mich., Adco is a manufacturer of specialty adhesives and sealants. Nalco had planned to sell Adco since late 1991 to concentrate more on its primary sales of chemicals for water treatment and a wide variety of industrial processes.
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Sun to increase benzene production via recovery Philadelphia-based Sun Co. plans to double its East Coast benzene capacity from 30 million to 60 million gal per year through a process that extracts benzene from gasoline feedstocks. In addition to increasing benzene production, the project—at its Delaware Valley refining complex—will serve to reduce benzene levels in gasoline to less than 1%, meeting environmental requirements that go into effect in 1995. Recently, Sun signed a longterm agreement with British Petroleum to supply feedstock for the process from BPs adjacent Marcus Hook,
Elf Atochem enters polymer stabilizers market Elf Atochem North America's Fine Chemicals Group has commercialized two new polymer stabilizers. The first, a reactive hydrazide functional hindered amine stabilizer, extends the life of polymers and coating systems exposed to ultraviolet light. It will compete head on with hindered amines from Ciba-Geigy, the dominant producer in the market. The second is a reactive hydrazide functional hindered phenol antioxidant. The company expects to develop applications in the market for these two products in automotive, architectural, and powder coatings, and in polyolefin and engineering thermoplastic resins.
Dow increases capacity for magnesium hydroxide Dow Chemical has expanded its magnesium hydroxide production facility in Ludington, Mich., 120 miles west of Midland, by 30,000 tons to 125,000 tons per year. Cost of the expansion exceeds $2 million. The capacity increase is MAY 24, 1993 C&EN
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BUSINESS CONCENTRATES expected to serve acid waste neutralization markets, particularly in the chemical process industry. The chemical is also used in manufacture of refractory brick for lime and steel kilns, and as an additive in fuel oil and coal. Dow marketing manager Mark Tomiko says that lime, caustic soda (of which Dow is a major producer), and soda ash are all more widely used in acid waste neutralization than is magnesium hydroxide. But for niche applications where systems savings can compensate for the higher price per ton, magnesium hydroxide will hold onto its 1% share (or 40,000 tons) of the growing waste treatment market, he says.
INTERNATIONAL • Arco Chemical sets sights on growth in China
facturing and sales units—in Canada, France, Germany, Spain, and Sweden—as well as sales offices in Finland, the U.K., and Singapore.
• Chemicals trim Shell's first-quarter losses Chemicals remained in the red in the first quarter at Royal Dutch/Shell, but the total was less of a loss than the company had experienced in fourth-quarter 1992. On sales of $2.42 billion in the quarter, up 11% from first-quarter 1992, the chemicals division at Shell reported an operating loss of nearly $34 million. In the comparable period last year, the division had profits of $31 million, but had a loss of $282 million in the fourth quarter of last year. The losses came in areas outside the U.S., where chemical operating profits for the quarter were about $72 million, up 124% from first-quarter 1992.
Alan R. Hirsig, president and chief executive officer of Arco Chemical, told shareholders at the company's annual meeting earlier this month that Arco is targeting China for sales growth and as a possible manufacturing site. He said that 1992 sales to China were more than $50 million and added that "to support this rapidly growing business, we've opened two sales offices, one in Shanghai and, more recently, one in Beijing/' Future plans call for "fuller participation in this dynamic market," and Arco Chemical is considering the possibility of investing in a propylene oxide plant in China. Hirsig added that Arco Chemical expected to be a "stronger force in the nineties" because of its proprietary technology and manufacturing and technical support, among other factors.
• DSM to boost powder resins production
• Health reforms hit Degussa's half-year earnings
• Rhône-Poulenc's profits fall in first quarter
In a turnabout from the normal situation, pharmaceuticals rather than chemicals showed the more significant drop in pretax profits at German metals, chemicals, and pharmaceuticals producer Degussa in the company's fiscal first half that ended March 31. Although the company doesn't break out operating profits by sector, it does say that except in the chemicals division, the first quarter's good profitability did not continue; pharmaceuticals, in particular, were hard hit by new German health care reform legislation. Sales rose 11% from first-half 1992 to $4.24 billion, thanks primarily to higher trading of precious metals and company reorganization measures; without those factors, group sales would have fallen 1 % in the first six months, the company says.
Rhône-Poulenc, the French chemicals giant being groomed for privatization by the French government, has proved it is not immune to the sluggish economic climate in Europe. Compared with first-quarter 1992, its operating profits in this year's first quarter were down 19% to $319 million. Sales also were down 8%, to $3.62 billion, compared with the comparable period a year earlier. The decrease in operating profits was attributed primarily to reduced volumes and prices in chemicals and fibers, while human health and animal health products held up well.
• Sweden's Casco Nobel buys paper specialties business
The Danish company Hydrogas Danmark has agreed to buy the dry ice business of ICI, as the British company elects to concentrate on its liquid carbon dioxide business. Hydrogas will build a new dry ice production facility in the U.K., to be commissioned in 1994, for which ICI will supply the liquid carbon dioxide. Until then, ICI will produce dry ice at its current plant in Billingham, in northeast England, for Hydrogas. Hydrogas is a subsidiary of Norsk Hydro, the Norwegian chemicals producer.
Casco Nobel, part of Sweden's Nobel Industries, has bought Arjo Wiggin's paper impregnation operations in Arches, France. With the sales brought in from the new operations, Casco's sales of impregnated papers will total about $135 million. These operations include surfacing materials primarily for use by manufacturers of plywood and particle board. Casco now has five manu20
MAY 24, 1993 C&EN
The resins division of Dutch chemicals producer DSM plans to expand its capacity for powder resins production worldwide by 50% by the end of the year to meet what it sees as fast-growing demand for resins used for powder coatings. The company is doubling powder resins production in Augusta, Ga., to about 30 million lb, effective the beginning of next year. It also will increase capacity 20% in Schoonebeek, the Netherlands, and will double its capacity in Taiwan. These moves follow a recent 50% increase in capacity at the company's powder resins plant in Spain.
• Danes expand in dry ice business
