each year for six years beginning April 1, 1980. Hammer also says that an agreement in principle has been reached with President Ceausescu of Romania to form a joint venture between Romania and Island Creek Coal providing for development and operation of a coal mine to produce 2 million tons of steam coal annually for 30 years for Romania. The maximum amount of coal exports provided by the agreements, if they are fully implemented, is more than 63.5 million tons, with a value of more than $2 billion. •
EPA faulted again on pesticide registration The General Accounting Office once again is criticizing the Environmental Protection Agency's efforts to reregister the 35,000 pesticides approved for use before 1970. EPA's latest effort—the registration standards program—which began in October 1978, is already behind schedule, GAO says, and is faced with many other problems, which, if not corrected soon, may cause additional delays and will jeopardize the program's efficiency and effectiveness. EPA does not intend even to try to reregister all 35,000 pesticides individually. Instead it is concentrating on the 514 active chemical ingredients used in pesticides sold in the U.S. But even so, the program is a massive one—taking 10 to 15 years to complete, involving hundreds of EPA and contractor personnel, and costing as much as $200 million. If the program is to be successful, GAO says, EPA will have to change a number of its current procedures. It recommends that EPA: • Rank the 514 pesticide ingredients in order of their potential risk to man and the environment and concentrate on developing standards first for those pesticides ranking highest. • Identify key health and safety tests that are required by EPA regulations and that are necessary to make even preliminary reregistration decisions, require registrants to submit missing tests within a reasonable time, and cancel registrations for firms not complying. • Require that each registrant submit a list of all published and unpublished health and safety tests it has for each ingredient and have EPA scientists review the lists to identify and request that the registrant submit copies of those tests the agency needs to complete a standard. • Develop a tracking system to
monitor the status of a pesticide as it goes through the registration standards system and institute procedures to identify and remove obstacles that seriously impede progress. In addition, GAO says that EPA needs to develop an operating manual
describing from start to finish how a standard will be developed and implement formal training programs for its staff. Without these tools, GAO says, people working on the program don't know what they are supposed to do or why. •
Process yields gasoline from residual oil Ashland Oil Co. has developed a new catalytic process to convert heavy residual oil to gasoline, light distillates, and similar products. The process is being touted as a way to use the heavy sulfurous resids that have been growing in volume and simultaneously improve the company's profit picture within the present pricing structure. The drive to convert resids also has prompted Hydrocarbon Research Inc. to seek partners for a consortium to build a small, 5000 bbl-per-day refinery based on HRI's Dynacracking process. The HRI process is noncatalytic and is designed for conversion of residual oils, high-sulfur crudes, heavy metal crudes, and oils from shales and tar sands. The engineering phase of the project is expected to be completed by the summer of 1980. If all goes as HRI hopes, the consortium will spend about $30 million for the refinery. The catalyst for the Ashland process is proprietary. Ashland engineers will say only that it contains silica and alumina. They do claim that they have devised a way to use the catalyst to demetallize crude oil fractions of vanadium and nickel, which normally poison cracking catalysts. The process is described as high temperature and low pressure. The engineers won't specify a temperature
Atkins: expects to improve profits
but say that the operating pressure is about 1 atm. Gasoline produced from the residual oil in pilot-plant quantities has been evaluated at a no-lead octane rating of 94. The new process will increase the yield of gasoline from a barrel of feed from the present 50% to about 75%. The increased yield will decrease the load on the refinery and improve profits. Ashland chairman and chief executive officer Orin E. Atkins said at a security analysts meeting in New York City that he expects the new process to improve the net margin on a barrel of feed $8.00 to $12 per bbl. He notes that in today's markets, residual oil is selling for about $11.50 per bbl, whereas gasoline is selling at about $40 per bbl. On the basis of the successful tests, Ashland is building a 40,000 bblper-day addition to its refinery at Catlettsburg, Ky. The addition will cost about $70 million and is expected to be on stream by early 1982. •
Method broadens use of magnetic separation A Purdue University research team headed by electrical engineer Fritz J. Friedlaender has come up with a new concept that promises to broaden the usefulness of high-gradient magnetic separation technology, allowing its use even for materials normally considered nonmagnetic. In a high-gradient magnetic separator, particulates to be separated are slurried, usually in water, and passed through a steel wool mesh. When a strong magnetic field is applied to the mesh, the ferromagnetic filaments break up the field. Such high magnetic gradients are created around the fine filaments that not only strongly attracted ferromagnetic but weakly attracted paramagnetic particles are drawn to and collected on the mesh. When the field is removed from the mesh (or vice versa), the trapped materials can be flushed out. HGMS is used to remove colored contaminants from kaolin clays and in the treatment of wastewater from steel mills. It's also being tested for removing inorganic sulfur from coal before the coal is burned. April 7, 1980 C&EN
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