INDUSTRY THIS WEEK IN BRIEF
New
construction
Witco Chemical will build a $1.5 million organic peroxide plant at Marshall, Tex. Construction will begin before April 1, with completion slated for late this year. The plant will be owned and operated by U.S. Peroxygen, a division of Argus Chemical Co., which is a wholly owned subsidiary of Witco. Witco's corporate engineering department is serving as designer and general contractor. Hercules plans to build a synthetic resins plant at Brunswick, Ga. Scheduled for completion in the final quarter of 1968, the plant will be Hercules' third synthetic resins facility in the U.S. to be operated by the pine and paper chemicals department. The other facilities are at Burlington, N.J., and Hattiesburg, Miss. Hercules will not reveal either cost or capacity of the new facility. Southwire Co., Carrollton, Ga., plans to build a $90 million aluminum reduction plant near Hawesville, Ky. Initial capacity will be 45,000 tons per year for each potline, with much of the output going to the company's adjacent rod casting and cable mill, which is being constructed concurrently. Startup of the first potline is scheduled for September 1969. The plant can be expanded to four potlines without increasing service facilities or interrupting production. The plant will use Kaiser Aluminum & Chemical Corp. process technology and will have a multimilliondollar air pollution control system. Kaiser Engineers, Oakland, Calif., has been awarded the contract for design and engineering services. Rohm and Haas is building a facility to do development work on commercial production of synthetic fibers at its Fayetteville, N.C., nylon plant. Scaled-down production equipment will be used to evaluate the full range of fiber processing operations. Macmillan and Macmillan of Fayetteville designed the building. Rohm and Haas is serving as its own general contractor. The facility is scheduled for completion by the end of 1968. Owens-Corning Fiberglas Corp. will double its capacity to make glass fiber tire cord in 1968. The company says it will have a 6 million pound-per-year capacity by mid-1968 of impregnated glass fiber yarn for tire reinforcement and has committed fabricating equipment to produce enough of the cord to allow conversion in 1968 of 15 to 2 0 % of all passenger tires to glass fiber-belted construction. Goodyear Tire & Rubber Co., Sears, Roebuck & Co., Mohawk Rubber Co., and Armstrong Rubber Co. are marketing tires using the glass fiber.
Corporate Badische Anilin-& Soda-Fabrik, A.G., has consolidated its two U.S. subsid iaries. BASF Colors & Chemicals, Inc., and Badische Products Corp. have merged to form BASF
Corp., which will have its corporate headquarters in New York City. Dr. Hans Lautenschlager, newly elected president of BASF Corp., estimates investments this year of $8 to $10 million for the production of dyes, polymer dispersions, and expandable polystyrene, and total sales of $30 million. Commonwealth Edison Co. and United Nuclear Corp. are undertaking a cooperative research and development program to advance the use of plutonium fuel in nuclear reactors. United Nuclear will design and fabricate the plutonium-bearing fuel assemblies to be placed in Edison's Dresden I nuclear power station in September 1969. Small quantities of plutonium are already being used in the Dresden reactor in an Edison Electric Institute test project. Commonwealth Edison says greater use of plutonium will increase the amount of energy that can be extracted from nuclear fuel.
International General Aniline & Film Corp. has consolidated its subsidiary operations in the U.K. into one company—GAF (Great Britain), Ltd. The operating divisions of the new company are: reprographic products division, formerly Hall Harding, Ltd.; photo products division, formerly Sawyer's Photographic Products (U.K.), Ltd.; and chemical products division, formerly Fine Dyestuffs & Chemicals, Ltd. Farbenfabriken Bayer, A.G., has opened three new marketing offices in Africa. They are: Bayer (Ethiopia), Ltd., in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia; Bayer (East Africa), Ltd., in Nairobi, Kenya, for Kenya, Tanzania, and Uganda; and Bayer Nigeria, Ltd., in Lagos. Bayer says its sales in Africa increased 5 0 % during the past three years. Reichhold-Albert-Chemie Vertriebs, GmbH, Hamburg, is a new sales company that will market synthetic resins and plastics emulsions produced by Reichhold Chemie, A.G., Hamburg, and Chemische Werke Albert, Wiesbaden. Both firms are subsidiaries of Farbwerke Hoechst, A.G. Chemische Werke Albert was purchased by Hoechst in 1964 and this year Hoechst acquired more than 9 5 % of the shares of Reichhold Chemie, A.G. In addition to sales activities, Albert and Reichhold plan to cooperate in research, development, production, and applications technology. Farbenfabriken Bayer, A.G., is entering the plastics film business. The company has acquired a majority interest in Wolff & Co., A.G., Walsrode, second largest producer of plastic film in West Germany (biggest is Kalle, A.G., Wiesbaden, a Hoechst subsidiary). Wolff was formerly 100% owned by tire-maker Metzeler, A.G. Details of the purchase have not been disclosed. Bayer makes polycarbonate, polyurethane, polyester, and acrylonitrile-butadienestyrene (ABS) plastics. JAN. 22, 1968 C&EN
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