The Chemical World This Week INDUSTRY & BUSINESS
JANUARY
7, 1953
CONCENTRATES
• Clark Oil & Refining has changed its plan to use Universal Oil Products' Unisir cumene oxidation process for making phenol (C&EN, Jan. 22, 1962, page 21). According to M. P. Venema, UOP board chairman and chief executive officer, Clark will install only the UOP catalytic condensation process for making cumene and has decided to license a competitive cumene oxidation process. Reason is not patents or the technical and economical feasibility of Unisir, according to Mr. Venema. Rather, he says, it stems from the fact that UOP doesn't offer marketing arrangements relating to the buying and selling of phenol. Clark says it plans to break ground for the new phenol plant this spring. • Lithium Corp. of America has sold its 368,000share interest (about 52%) in Hydro-Space Technology, Inc., to Four Hundred Construction Co. Sale price was $1.15 a share. Harry D. Feltenstein, Jr., president of Lithium Corp., says the company will reveal its plans to reinvest the capital in a few weeks. John S. Dorf, newlyelected board chairman of Hydro-Space, says new long-range plans for the company will be detailed soon. Hydro-Space was formed by Lithium Corp. in 1961 to develop new uses for lithium and had been making lithium vapor generators and buoyancy devices. • A preliminary injunction will be issued in the Du Pont-American Potash legal battle involving Du Pont's chloride process for making titanium dioxide pigments. Chancellor Collins Seitz, Chancery Court, Wilmington, Del., says he will issue the injunction to prevent Donald E. Hirsch, a former Du Pont engineer now employed by Ampot, from disclosing details of the process to Ampot. Du Pont maintains that Mr. Hirsch's position as technical manager for Ampot's chloride-process titanium dioxide plant at Mojave, Calif., violates a security agreement signed by Mr. Hirsch when he was first employed by Du Pont in 1950 (C&EN, Dec. 17, 1962, page 24). R. B. Coons, Ampot vice president, says that the new order simply continues the preliminary restraining order issued by Chancellor Seitz last November until the final hearing, when the court will consider all the evidence. Meanwhile, Mr. Coons says, the action has no bearing on Ampot's plans to proceed in the field of titanium dioxide.
• Texas Eastern Transmission has purchased Pyrofax Gas, formerly a subsidiary of Union Carbide. The acquisition cost Texas Eastern about $30 million. Pyrofax markets more than 100 million gallons of propane a year to over 500,000 customers in 28 states, eastern Canada, and Bermuda. The acquisition, another step in Texas Eastern's diversification program, will help reduce the company's reliance on the closely-regulated field of natural gas transmission, Orville S. Carpenter, president of Texas Eastern, says. • Humble Oil & Refining will lay off only about 100 employees at its Baytown, Tex., refinery Jan. 11, as part of its personnel reduction of 500 people (C&EN, Oct. 1, 1962, page 17). The layoff is less than half the number that Humble expected when the cut in work force was planned. Retirements or voluntary terminations are major reasons for fewer layoffs. In addition, about 60 employees qualified for other work will be retrained to replace other nonsurplus employees who requested retirement. • Chemetron Corp. now owns a 50% interest in Northern Chemical Industries, Inc., Baltimore, Md. The transaction was completed when NCI sold 163,200 shares of its common stock to Chemetron. Chemetron already held 40,900 shares of NCI stock. NCI makes ammonia, sulfuric acid, and superphosphates for the fertilizer industry, and other chemicals at Searsport, Maine. Chemetron built a 100 ton-a-day ammonia plant for NCI at Searsport in 1958 and has been operating it since under a lease arrangement. Chemetron is also tripling the capacity of its National Cylinder Gas air separation plant at Chicago. This will bring the plant's capacity to 400 tons a day. Cost of the expansion will be between $4 and $5 million. It will supply the Wisconsin Steel Works of International Harvester in Chicago and will be completed early in 1964. • Baird-Atomic, Inc., has purchased Chem-Trac Corp., Cambridge, Mass. Chem-Trac makes organic radiochemicals for use as tracers. It also makes beta and gamma reference sources. Its sales are "well over $100,000 a year," according to a Baird-Atomic spokesman. Baird-Atomic makes optical, nuclear, and electronic instruments and systems. Its sales for the year, ended Sept. 30, were $13.1 million. JAN.
7, 1963
C&EN
27
