INDUSTRY THIS WEEK IN BRIEF
New
construction
Kewanee Oil Co.'s Harshaw Chemical division has started construction at Elyria, Ohio, of additional capacity for catalysts used in the petroleum, petrochemical, and synthetic organic chemical industries. The facility is slated for completion in 1968. Kennecott Copper will start work shortly on a copper chemical manufacturing plant at Houston, Tex. Completion is slated for late 1968. The unit will be Kennecott's first venture into the copper chemical field and will cost about $4 million. Tellepsen Engineering Co., Houston, is the contractor. Main product will be Kocide, a cupric hydroxide fungicide, though antifouling marine paint products are also planned. Reichhold Chemicals at Carteret, N.J., has placed on stream a $2 million expansion of its phenolic resin facility. Present capacity is 7 million pounds per year. An additional $1 million expansion is in the engineering stage and, when completed, will increase resin capacity to 17 million pounds per year. The resins will be used captively at Reichhold's phenolic molding powder facility at Carteret, which underwent a $500,000 expansion earlier this year. The facility also provides for merchant sales of the phenolic resins. Corporate Wheelabrator Corp., Mishawaka, Ind., has centralized its industrial air pollution control operations. Previously, one department handled fabric filters, another department mechanical collectors and electrostatic precipitators. The company has also added a low-energy wet scrubber to its product line this year. Len G. Nelson, vice president and general manager of the company's Criswell division since 1961, will direct the air pollution control division as a vice president. APL Corp., Brooklyn, N.Y., says it has an order for disposable plastic bottles from a major U.S. brewer for use in a consumer market test program scheduled for late fall. It says it is doing research and development on a clear plastic bottle for one of the "world's leading makers of carbonated soft drinks." The company refuses to identify the brewer, the soft drink company, or the resin from which it will make the bottles. It says, however, that the resin material has Food and Drug Administration clearance. APL is expanding its manufacturing facilities to accommodate its clear plastic bottle production. Industrial
relations
Humble Oil & Refining is giving some of its Baytown, Tex., refinery employees an intensive course to improve their 36 C&EN OCT. 2, 1967
reading comprehension. The course is part of an effort to upgrade the skills of some long-time employees so that they can qualify for complex training programs designed to equip them for top-rated jobs in the refinery. Lee College in Baytown, called in to help with the current upgrading effort, pointed out that some employees, even though they know how to read, would have no chance in the training programs unless they first received intensive reading instruction. Two groups of 25 to 30 employees each have completed the seven-month course, which meets two hours twice a week. First-class craftsmen at the Baytown plant earn in excess of $8000 per year at present rates. International Mitsubishi Monsanto Chemical Co., Tokyo, Japan, has started production of petroleum additives at its recently completed manufacturing facilities at Yokkaichi, Japan. The plant will use Monsanto technology. The petroleum additives (detergents and inhibitors) will be marketed in Japan under Monsanto's trademarks—Santolene, Santolube, Santopoid, and Santopour. Rheinische Olefinwerke, GmbH, Wesseling, Cologne, a joint venture of Badische Anilin-& Soda-Fabrik, A.G., and Deutsche Shell, will put on stream at the end of 1967 a 6000 metric-ton-per-year addition to its polyisobutylene capacity. BASF sells the product in the U.S. as Oppanol B. It is used in making pressure-sensitive adhesives and rubber and caulking compounds. Poliolefinas Colombianas, S.A., Bogota, Colombia, 4 9 % owned by Empresa Colombiana de Petroleos (ECOPETROL), a Colombian government agency, and 5 0 % owned by Dow Quimica, N.V., a wholly owned subsidiary of Dow Chemical, has approval on an Inter-American Development Bank loan equivalent to $5 million to help finance construction of Colombia's first polyethylene producing plant. Costing $10.3 million, the plant will have a yearly capacity of 15,000 metric tons of polyethylene. The loan will finance 4 8 % of the total cost of the project, Dow and ECOPETROL will finance 19.4%, and the remaining 12.6% will come from local sources. The plant will be at Barrancabermeja, 150 miles north of Bogota, adjacent to ECOPETROL's major oil refining installation there. Shawinigan Chemicals, Ltd., Varennes, Que., plans to increase vinyl chloride capacity to more than 100 million pounds per year by adding an oxychlorination unit. Ethylene will be provided by a 500 million pound-per-year unit now under construction. The company's chloralkali plant in Shawinigan East, Que., will supply the chlorine. The monomer will be available for captive use and sales. Using B. F. Goodrich technology, Canadian Badger Co., Toronto, will design and construct the unit. Completion is slated for early 1969.
