Polyethylene Prices Drop Phillips leads general tumble as base price for low pressure process plastic drops 4 cents per pound JTLASTIC
PRODUCERS
this
week
are
mopping their brows, following a 4 cent-per-pound price cut by all domestic Ziegler- and Phillips-type producers. This puts t h e base price a t 43 cents, a n d marks t h e first big price drop in this fledging, year-old market. Initial commercial base price has been 47 cents per pound—a 12-cent differential over the conventional resin. No one expected this spread to exist indefinitely (C&EN, April 8, 1957, p a g e 16), b u t few outside the trade saw an lSVoTr cut coming just now. Phillips started the ball rolling by quietly dropping the schedule on its general molding resins to a base of 45 cents and starting a discount pattern which means another 2 cents per p o u n d off to large users (400,000 pounds or more in six months). Its film a n d fiber grades are 47 cents. Hercules immediately followed b y slashing the price of its general purpose material t o 43 cents in carload shipments (20,000 p o u n d s ) . It also shifted product grades and prices into series based on end use. Within hours the other two domestic producers, Grace and Celanese, followed suit and initiated new base prices at 43 cents. Koppers, with its plant in partial o p eration, announced it too would sell at that level. With Koppers and Carbide expected on stream almost immediately, the 1958 spring lineup looks like this: Annual Capacity ( m iîlions
of
Producer pounds) Phillips, Pasadena, Tex. 75 Grace, Baton Rouge, La. 50 Celanese, Pasadena, Tex. 40 Hercules, Parlin, N. J. 30 Koppers, Port Reading, N . J. 30 Carbide, Institute, W . Va. 30 Carbide, Seadrift, Tex. 25 Plants of other companies now being built are scheduled to come on stream later. Low pressure process producers are certain that t h e new price pattern will stimulate sales. Hercules' Elmer F. Hinner says it "will further widen t h e range of applications." 26
C&EN
MARCH
3,
1958
Economics, Not Missiles Spreading free enterprise America's best defense measure, military-industrial conferees say -AMERICAN INDUSTRY'S STRONGEST W E A P O N in t h e cold w a r is economics.
Spread American free enterprise all over the world and the spread of Communism can h e stopped. A t t h e same time, economic development overseas will help the Free World keep its industrial supremacy over the Soviet bloc. This was t h e consensus of the 4th Annual National Military-Industrial Conference held in Chicago. The military threat posed by Soviet missiles and atomic weapons is real, conference participants agree. But in the long run, these weapons may never he used. According t o Socony-Mobil's R. Rea Jackson, t h e threat to t h e U . S. is not the ICBM. Instead, he says, it is in the field of peaceful production. And to increase production a n d keep up a strong economy i n t h e future, the U. S. will have to get more and more of its resources overseas. In Jackson's opinion, industry's growing appetite for overseas r a w materials means that someone will have t o invest more money than ever abroad. A n d that money should come from private enterprise. I t will b e like walking a tightrope, h e says, since investors will have to avoid anything that smacks of dollar diplomacy. Oil and metals are the fields American capital should invest in, says Jackson. Oil, adequate in supply n o w ,
will unlikely keep pace with demand in the future. Of 26 important metals, Jackson states, we a r e self-sufficient in two. The rest have to be imported, and b y 1975, from 25 to 10O% of these will come from overseas. • An Economic S t a k e . Such foreign investments will give more and more people an economic stake for now and new future opportunities. A solid a n d enduring resistance to Communism can then result, says Robert L . Garner of International Finance Corp. Trying to sell concepts like freedom and democracy usually fails, h e notes. T h e appeals are t o o vague, too far removed from traditions and habits. People in many countries can't relate these ideas to themselves. But if more and better jobs are m a d e , thereby raising the standard of living, then freedom's meaning will b e more tangible t o them. T h e Government can do a lot to encourage a n d help expand foreign trade and investments, industry people say. International business consultant A. M. Strong says the Government should take t h e steps listed in the table above. Of course, says Strong, American investors need assurances that host nations want the investments. Moreover, these countries should be prepared to offer protections, a n d assurances of fair treatment of capital should he obtained bv t h e United States.
