INDUSTRY THIS WEEK IN BRIEF
N e w construction Air Products and Chemicals has started building a multimillion-dollar oxygen and nitrogen plant in Natrium, W.Va., to supply tonnage quantities of the gases by pipeline to PPG Industries' industrial chemical division and Mobay Chemical Co. It is being built between the two customer plants, which are also located in Natrium. Air Products has not released capacity figures for the plant. PPG will use the gases for producing titanium dioxide and ammonia, and Mobay for synthesizing components used in urethane chemicals and plastics.
Royalties on sales will be paid to Humble Oil & Refining and Gulf Oil, from which Occidental acquired sulfur rights on the dome in mid-1966.
Corporate Cosan Chemical Corp., Clifton, N.J., has been licensed to manufacture organolead compounds in the U.S by International Lead Zinc Research Organization, Inc. (ILZRO). Cosan will have worldwide marketing rights for the organolead compounds developed in ILZRO research.
Westinghouse has begun construction of its $20 million nuclear fuel fabricating plant near Columbia, S.C. Giffels & Rossetti, Inc., designed the plant, and McCrory-Sumwalt Construction Co. is general contractor. The facility is scheduled to begin operating in the third quarter of 1969 and reach full production in 1970 (C&EN, Sept. 18, 1967, page 35).
Westinghouse Air Brake Co. (WABCO) has acquired Vacuum Ceramics, Inc., Cary, III., for an undisclosed amount of cash. Vacuum Ceramics, which will continue operations at its present location as a WABCO division, manufactures and supplies glass-to-metal seals and ceramic products to the aerospace and associated industries.
Union Carbide will begin construction immediately of a $20 million addition to its Tarrytown, N.Y., technical center. To be completed next year, the new facilities will include a research and development laboratory for the Linde division and a building to house supporting services for new and existing facilities at the site. The Linde laboratory will consolidate R&D activities now located at facilities in Newark, N.J., Tonawanda, N.Y., and Indianapolis, Ind., and will include work in environmental and industrial gases, molecular sieves, and metalworking processes and equipment. The second new building will include Carbide's largest computer center, as well as library, analytical services, laboratory supply facilities, and cafeteria.
International
Shell Chemical will build units to make N-Sol 32 (a highnitrogen-content liquid fertilizer) and ammonium nitrate for fertilizer at the company's existing complex at St. Helens, Ore. Capacities of the units have not been disclosed. D. M. Weatherly Co., Atlanta, Ga., will be general contractor for the process elements, and Jacobs Engineering Co., Pasadena, Calif., will install utilities and handle off-site requirements. Production from the units will help meet growing demand for fertilizers along the West Coast, Shell Chemical says. Air Reduction Co.'s Airco industrial gases division has started up a 13,900 cu. ft-per-hour high-purity nitrogen plant at Western Electric's Merrimack Valley works in North Andover, Mass. Western Electric uses the gas primarily for making ferrites in crystal unit assemblies. Jefferson Lake Sulphur Co., a subsidiary of Occidental Petroleum, has started producing sulfur from the Lake Hermitage Dome in Plaquemines Parish, La.—30 miles south of New Orleans. The $5 million plant, designed by Brown & Root, uses the Frasch process for an initial production capability of 200,000 long tons of sulfur per year.
Glycolex, A.G., the European ethylene glycol export cartel, is being dissolved. Set up in Zurich in 1966 to stabilize the prices of ethylene and propylene oxides and glycols in international markets (C&EN, Oct. 10, 1966, page 39), the cartel is going into liquidation and will cease to function officially at the end of this month. Glycolex won't say why it is going into liquidation except that there are "commercial reasons." Capital of the cartel is 100,000 Swiss francs (about $23,000). Members are BASF, Bayer, Hoechst, and Huels, all of West Germany; Ugine-Kuhlmann, Progil, and Naphtachimie, of France; and Petrochim, of Belgium. SEC Babcock & Wilcox, C.A., of Spain, will build for the Portuguese government a 580,000 gallon-per-day multistage flash-distillation desalting plant at Sao Vicente in the Cape Verde Islands. Engineering and design will be provided by Baldwin-Lima-Hamilton Corp., Eddystone, Pa., for which Babcock & Wilcox in Spain is one of the licensed overseas agents. The desalination plant, consisting of two equal-capacity units operating in parallel, is scheduled for completion by the end of 1969. Degussa, Frankfurt/Main, has founded a company in Mexico. Named Metalo-Quimica Mexicana, S.A., the new company will represent Degussa in Mexico "for essential areas of our extensive production program." In addition to this new operation, Degussa has affiliated companies in the U.S., Brazil, Austria, France, and Italy. Standard Oil Co. (Ind.) is transferring responsibility for its chemical operations outside the U.S. to Amoco Chemicals Corp. from American International Oil Co., effective April 1. American International will retain responsibility for fertilizer operations outside the U.S. MARCH 25, 1968 C&EN
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