News of the Week
CHEMICAL LABOR TAKES MILITANT TURN To no great surprise, chemical labor in the U.S. is taking a more abrasive attitude after settling for fairly mild terms in contracts negotiated last winter. Just how much labor will step up its future demands to chemical management was the main underlying issue last week at the national convention of the Oil, Chemical & Atomic Workers International Union in Hollywood, Fla. In an atmosphere charged with aggressive talk by a number of speakers, OCAW not only hashed over contract issues but also elected a brand new leadership as A. F. (AI) Grospiron, 63, retired after more than a decade as union president. The close presidency contest, not decided by press time, gave OCAW members a clear choice between a moderate and a radical candidate. The convention was dominated largely by the divergent styles of the two candidates for president. In many respects, it has become a contest between the younger rank-and-file members, represented by 53-year-old Anthony Mazzocchi, and the more conservative wing, represented by
AI Grospiron retires as OCA W head 4
G&ENAug. 20, 1979
58-year-old Robert F. Goss. Mazzochi seemed to gain some support during the week. A tipoff of the union's more aggressive swing was the general sympathy for a proposed move by OCAW's Canadian district to form a more autonomous unit within the union. The Canadian plan is to maintain some tie with the union but to be more independent in handling its own concerns, which the Canadians consider to be different from those of the U.S. members. Generally, the Canadians want greater bargaining clout for the more combative tilts with management which tend to be the rule in Canada. Although the Canadian issue also was undecided at press time, there were indications that the measure would be adopted. Concerning U.S.-related issues, one of the factors that seemed to be adding to militancy among OCAW members, especially refinery workers, is the vast difference between wage settlements that they received at the first of the year and profit increases among their employers. In January, the refinery workers accepted a contract that called for an 8% annual increase on average wages paid in the industry. By contrast, oil industry profits more than doubled year-toyear in the first half of 1979. Labor leaders now say hotly that the oil industry may have to be nationalized. One guest speaker, Lane Kirkland, secretary-treasurer of the parent AFL-CIO and the man considered most likely to succeed aging AFL-CIO head George Meany, told the convention, "Private multinational firms flying the Liberian or other prostituted flag, are not the people who should be managing America's economy and its foreign policy (in dealing with OPEC countries) or any other area. The giant oil companies who do the buying on whatever terms the oil: sheiks dictate have no bargaining le verage, and they would have no incentive to exert any, even if they had it." Kirkland calls for the government to take over oil imports. He wants a government agency "to determine on the basis of national needs, the amount of foreign oil to be imported, to negotiate the price to be paid, and to allocate distribution in this country in ways that meet the needs and serve
the interests of all segments of society." Kirkland also reiterated to the convention the AFL-CIO's position that "if the oil monopoly failed to adequately serve the public interest, consideration should be given to nationalization of the industry." In Washington, D.C., the American Petroleum Institute condemned AFL-CIO's idea of nationalization. "Nationalization of the petroleum industry would accelerate the rush toward disaster. Few actions would be more detrimental to union members or any other Americans." D
North Sea hydrocarbons project gets go-ahead The potential of North Sea hydrocarbons as a chemicals source got a boost from George Younger, the U.K. government's Secretary of State for Scotland. He has given the green light to a scheme that includes a plant for separating and storing the components of offshore gas, and an ethane cracker, the first of its kind in Western Europe. The companies involved are Exxon Corp.'s U.K. subsidiaries, Esso Chemical and Esso Petroleum, and the Royal Dutch/Shell group. Total cost of the interrelated projects will exceed $1.1 billion. Completion is expected by 1984. The Brent field, jointly owned by Esso and Shell, will be the source of the natural gas and associated gas liquids. A 284-mile pipeline, costing about $800 million, was completed earlier this year to bring the products to a terminal at St. Fergus on Scotland's northeast coast. Shell Exploration & Production, the company that operates the Brent field on behalf of the partners, will build storage and methane extraction facilities at St. Fergus. The recovered methane, between 500 million and 700 million cu ft per day, will be sold to British Gas. The amount will be sufficient to provide about 15% of the U.K.'s annual gas needs during the next 20 years. Ethane, propane, butanes, and natural gas will be piped as a mixture 135 miles south to Mossmorran, near Edinburgh. There, Shell will put up
a separation plant to remove the ethane. The remaining components will go to a storage terminal at nearby Braefoot Bay. Shell will sell its portion to Northern Liquid Fuels International, a wholly owned subsidiary of Northern Natural Gas headquartered in Omaha, Neb. The company has contracted to buy about 13 billion lb of the liquefied petroleum gas over a 10-year period from Shell. The ethane, meanwhile, will be used as feedstock for the cracker Esso will build adjacent to the separation facility. This will have an 'ethylene capacity of 1.1 billion lb annually. It will cost about $700 million. Shell Chemical, however, likely will finance half the cost in return for half the production. Completion of the cracker is expected in 1984. When it comes on stream, Esso will export its half of the output to continental Europe. Some of the olefin might be used as feedstock in the 560 million lb-per-year low-density polyethylene operation at Antwerp, Belgium, which Esso bought from National distillers & Chemical earlier this year. An alternate outlet is the Essochem plant LDPE at Meerhout, Belgium, with an annual capacity of 528 million lb. For its part, Shell Chemicals will use the additional ethylene for its enlarged petrochemicals operations in the U.K. Coupled with the ethylene now made in its naphtha and gas-oil cracker at Carrington, the company will have a total of 1.1 billion lb of the olefin available annually. The projected plans of Esso and Shell have met stiff opposition from environmental groups since they were first proposed several years ago. One of the concerns still expressed is the fear of the volatile lower olefins' exploding in the heavily populated Edinburgh area. D
Texaco joins gasohol binge in U.S. The fast-developing gasohol industry in the U.S. has received a major boost with the entry of the nation's third largest oil company, Texado. Texaco plans to test-market gasohol, a fuel mixture of 9Q% gasoline and 10% ethanol, in three metropolitan markets—Indianapolis, Boston, and New York City. The first test, in Indianapolis, begins about Oct. 1. Although commenting favorably on the usefulness of gasohol in stretching the supply of high-quality motor fuel and on gasohol's satisfactory operation in cars, Texaco has some caveats on the new mixture. These relate to ethanol supply and to necessary tax
relief, which latter has not yet come in Massachusetts and New York. "The extent to which the marketing of gasohol may alleviate imports of oil will, of course, depend upon the quantity and price of ethanol manufactured within the U.S. The current availability of ethanol from grain sources in the U.S. is Very small in relation to gasoline requirements," Texaco comments. Ethanol scarcity is a concern not only to Texaco. Although the Department of Energy has firmly endorsed gasohol development (C&EN, July 16, page 5), USDA's energy director, Weldon Barfom, testified to Congress in July that only a few companies are currently supplying fuel-type ethanol. "The roughly 100,000 gal per day of fuel alcohol currently produced in the U.S. is essentially from three wood and food processing firms," he says. Barton adds that some other firms in the corn wet-milling industry are actively interested in adding fuel alcohol production facilities. All told, the industry has some 12 firms with 22 active plants. More ready conversion to fuel alcohol production is possible in the beverage alcohol industry, where" Barton says several hundred thousand gallons per day of new capacity could be gained by adding an anhydrous process column and making other relatively inexpensive adaptations. G
Increased regulation of toxic chemicals urged The President's Toxic Substances Strategy Committee has called for more regulation of toxic chemicals. Its preliminary report, based on two years of study, recommends wider sharing of information on chemical hazards both within government and with public interest groups, tighter regulation of tjie cosmetics industry, and more authority and funding for the cleanup of inactive chemical dump sites. The committee, made up of representatives of the 18 federal agencies most involved in toxic chemicals research and' regulation, reviewed the two dozen or so laws governing toxic substances and found nhem basically sound. Most of these laws mandate action to limit exposure to potentially hazardous substances when there is strong, but not completely convincing, evidence of a hazard. To consider the magnitude of the hazard is the proper approach to the problem, the committee concludes. "Man-made toxic chemicals are a significant source of death and dis-
Speth: a source of disease
ease in the U.S. today," Speth says. "In the workplace alone, more than 100,000 workers are believed to die each year as a result of physical and chemical hazards, and occupational exposure to carcinogens is a factor in an estimated 20 to 38% of cancers." Robert A. Roland, president of the Chemical Manufacturers Association, calls the draft report "a hodgepodge of concepts and recommendations that have been either disputed or discredited since the committee was created in 1977." A recent report from the National Academy of Sciences points out that "there is no cancer epidemic from man-made chemicals," he says. The public needs protection against the hazards of toxic chemicals, Roland says. But it also needs to be protected from unnecessary actions and costly programs such as those suggested by the report. Specifically, the report calls for an integrated network of chemical data systems to be used by all federal agencies. This would replace the 220 separate systems, all organized differently, now being used. The committee also recommends legislation to control the cosmetics industry more tightly. Cosmetics manufacturers should be required to inform the Food & Drug Administration about product ingredients, results of prior testing, and whether any adverse reactions have been observed. And the report calls for better contingency planning for chemical spills and endorses proposed legislation to set up a "superfund" to clean up inactive hazardous waste disposal sites and to provide compensation for victims of these hazards. D Aug. 20, 1979 C&EN
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