CONCENTRATES Industry / Business The big August output Jump in U.S. chemicals may be deceptive, industry sources caution. The reason is that extensive hedge buying in advance of Sept. 1 price increases may have inflated the Federal Reserve System's August index reading. This figure shows a 2.5% jump over July to reach 143.9. This gain is the biggest yet in the four months of production recovery since the bottom index figure of 132.8 in April. Chemical companies are digging up capital in odd places. Besides W. R. Grace's unusual proposed sale of stock to the Friedrich Flick Group in West Germany (see page 7), last week brought another scheme that will raise $160 million for Union Carbide's plant construction program. Carbide is gaining this cash by selling a recordable (legally binding) interest called a "carve-out" in uranium, vanadium, and tungsten minerals not yet mined to ah unnamed buyer. Big management shuffles continue at top U.S. chemical companies (C&EN, Sept. 22, page 14). Last week brought the appointment of Henry Sonneborn 111 as president and chief operating officer at Witco Chemical, effective Oct. 1. Sonneborn has been executive vice president since 1972. Current Witco president William Wishnick will retain the position of chairman and chief executive officer. At Dow Corning, president John S. Ludington becomes chief executive officer Oct. 1 ; Dr. William C. Goggin retains the board chairmanship.
Government Congress should ease the unnecessarily stiff penalties for spills of hazardous materials being transported on the nation's waterways, the Manufacturing Chemists Association says in testimony to amend the 1972 water pollution law. Section 311 of the current law, which levies fines of up to $5 million for spills, "has the potential to severely disrupt existing chemical distribution patterns," MCA says. Barge operators say they may cease transporting certain chemicals, MCA adds, because they are unable to get insurance to cover such high penalties. ERDA now intends full development of the controversial liquid-metal fast-breeder reactor (LMFBR), even if there is a major breakthrough in a competing technology such as fusion, says Thomas A. Nemzek, director of the Energy Research & Development Administration's division of reactor R&D. Nemzek views the LMFBR program as essential for meeting U.S. energy needs. Cost of a demonstration LMFBR has risen from an estimated $700 million in 1973 to about $1.7 billion this year and will go higher, he says, before the facility is completed in 1983. According to Nemzek, at least 50% of the 1973-75 increase can be attributed to inflation. 10
C&EN Sept. 29,1975
The Defense Department's binary chemical weapons program is still a going concern. The full Senate had deleted all funding for such programs from its version of the military authorization bill. But a House-Senate conference has approved spending the entire $7.8 million requested by the Army and Navy for R&D, test, and evaluation of binary weapons in fiscal 1976. However, the conferees did adopt Senate language that prohibits producing lethal binary chemical munitions unless the President certifies to the House and the Senate that it is in the national interest to do so. Washington roundup e The Petrochemical Energy Group has told a House subcommittee that it opposes a bill to extend natural gas regulation because it will discourage new supplies and increase pressure for wasteful and costly synthetic natural gas plants. e A chemist, Austin N. Heller, has been sworn in as the Energy Research & Development Administration's assistant administrator for conservation.
International The recession in Canadian chemicals may have ended. July production figures from Statistics Canada show the second straight monthly gain for chemicals and chemical products, a 1.3% advance over June. If the upswing holds, May will have been the low point for Canadian chemical output. The May reading was down 4.3% from the recent high in January 1975 and down 7.7% from the record month of April 1974. For industrial chemicals, July showed the first production gain, a large 2.4% jump over June, after a 10.7% drop from the recent high in January 1975. Financing is complete for Sri Lanka's first ammonia/ urea plant. The Asian Development Bank has extended a $30 million concessional loan (40-year repayment at 1%-a-year service charge) to the project, which will make Sri Lanka self-sufficient in nitrogen fertilizers when the 940 metric-ton-aday of urea plant is completed in late 1978. Other loans, from the Kuwait Fund for Arab Economic Development, West Germany's Kreditanstalt fuer Wiederaufbau, and the government of India, will round out the required $92 million in foreign credits. Four leading West German chemical companies may build a petrochemicals complex in Scotland. A consortium comprising Bayer, BASF, VebaChemie, and Wacker-Chemie is evaluating a site on the Clyde Estuary not far from Glasgow. A naphtha cracker with an annual ethylene output of 500,000 metric tons would be at the heart of the complex. Products would include 100,000 metric tons of ethanol, 50,000 metric tons of vinyl acetate, and 20,000 metric tons of polyvinyl alcohol yearly. Most of the output would be shipped back to West Germany. The aim is to bring the $1 billion facility into operation within two years.
