INDUSTRY THIS WEEK IN BRIEF
New Construction Witco Chemical is expanding its polyester resin production capacity in Europe with the completion of a new plant at Elbeuf, France. The new plant will have a capacity of 5 million pounds per year. Freeport Sulphur plans to mine sulfur in the Gulf of Mexico. New mining facilities, which will cost about $25 million, will be located six miles out from Caminada Pass, La. Calgon Carp, plans to build a technical center and expand its present laboratory and office facilities in Robinson township near Pittsburgh, Pa. The technical center will be the home of Calgon's subsidiary, Pittsburgh Activated Carbon Co. The addition should be completed in the early fall and the center will be completed early next year. The total cost will be approximately $1.6 million. Wellman-Lord, Inc., Lakeland, Fla., will build a superphosphoric acid plant for Texas Gulf Sulphur at Aurora, N.C. The plant will have a capacity of 85,000 tons per year of phosphorus pentoxide as super acid, and will be completed by the end of this year. FMC Corp. has completed expansion of its ammonium, potassium, and sodium persulfate production at Buffalo, N.Y. (C&EN, Aug. 2, 1965, page 29). The expansion doubles FMC's capacity for all three chemicals. Union Bag-Camp Paper Corp. has changed its name to Union Camp Corp. because the company has expanded from paper and bag products into forest products such as corrugated containers, chemicals, turpentine, and fatty acids.
Struthers Scientific and International Corp., a subsidiary of Struthers Wells Corp., has acquired J. C. Carlile Corp., Denver, Colo. Struthers Scientific is an engineering and development company offering processes and equipment for the fertilizer and chemical industries. Carlile specializes in engineering services and equipment design for the fertilizer and metallurgical industries. Diamond Alkali Co. has purchased $3.5 million of new convertible subordinated debentures of Burdett Oxygen Co. Burdett is a supplier of industrial and medical gases with a current annual sales volume of about $10 million. Proceeds of the sale will provide capital for expansions by Burdett. James A. Hughes, vice chairman of Diamond, joins Burdett's board of directors.
Markets Monsanto will raise its price on polyvinyl chloride copolymer resins June 1. The price for floor grade vinyl copolymers will be 15 cents per pound and record grade copolymers will be raised to 16.5 cents a pound. Both prices are for truck-load bag shipments. Hopper car quantities prices will remain at 16 cents a pound. FMC Corp.'s inorganic chemicals division will increase its prices on sodium tripolyphosphate July 1. STPP powder and tetrasodium pyrophosphate powder in bags and bulk will be increased $5.00 per ton; granular forms, light and dense, will be increased $10.00 per ton. Price per 100 pound bag of sodium tripolyphosphate, anhydrous, will be $7.30 for powder and $7.55 for granular. Price per 100 pound bag of tetrasodium pyrophosphate, anhydrous, will be $6.95 for powder and $7.20 for granular. International
Du Pont has awarded a contract to Girdler Corp. of Louisville, Ky., for engineering and construction of a hydrogen producing plant at Victoria, Tex. The plant will be in operation by January 1967.
H. K. Ferguson Co. will construct a chemical plant for Syntex Corp. on Grand Bahamas Island. The plant, to cost about $5 million, is scheduled to begin production in September 1967.
Corporate
Jefferson Chemicals, Ltd., will produce specialty chemicals in the United Kingdom within about 18 months. Its products will include morpholine and piperazine, the first to be made commercially in the U.K. The company will use technology of Jefferson Chemical, similar to that used to make these products in a plant near Conroe, Tex. Jefferson says that the plant's capacity will satisfy U.K. needs for morpholine and piperazine and have a surplus for export.
Archer Daniels Midland Co. and six western European chemical companies plan to pool their technological skills in the development and manufacture of chemicals for the foundry industry. The companies are ADM Chemicals, Ltd., Birmingham, England; Nederlandsche Castoroliefabriek Necof, N.V., Geertruidenberg, Holland; Azienda Lavorazione Colori Resin e Affini, S.A., Milan, Italy; L'Avebene, S.A., Paris, France; Kernfest, K.G., Hilden, Germany, and Oleotechia, S.A., Castro-Urdiales, Spain. Mitsui & Co. (U.S.A.), Inc., a new American corporation, has been established in New York. The new company is to take over the 10 offices in the U.S. of the former Mitsui 6 Co., Ltd. Mitsui makes chemicals, steel, and textiles.
Syntex Corp. has acquired all of the stock of Instituto Farmacologico Latino, S.A., an independent pharmaceutical company in Spain. Instituto Farmacologico markets more than 60 pharmaceuticals, among which are antibiotics and specialty vitamin compounds. Syntex paid $10.5 million for IFL. MAY 9, 1966 C&EN
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