The Chemical World This Week
APRIL
n, i960
7VSSL CONCENTRATES • First quarter earnings may not be as good as expected if Hooker's report for the three months ended Feb. 29 sets a precedent. Although sales were about 4% ahead of last year, per-share earnings amounted to 40 cents. That's down from 43 cents in 1959's like period and lower than for any quarter last year. Hooker spokesmen blame the decline on higher costs for labor and materials, plus increased spending for research and development. Nevertheless, Hooker is going ahead with expansion plans. The company now has projects totaling $18 million, authorized or under way. Last year outlays were $7.1 million. • Beckman Instruments has sold its subsidiary, Shockley Transistor, to Clevite Corp., Cleveland, Ohio, and Clevite is already planning new production facilities in the Palo Alto, Calif., area for its acquisition. Shockley, headed by Nobel Prize—winning physicist Dr. William Shockley, was established by Beckman at Palo Alto in 1955. It will now become part of Clevite's transistor product division, headquartered in Waltham, Mass. According to Beckman's president, Dr. Arnold O. Beckman, the subsidiary has been engaged mostly in research, and therefore "volume production would now require a major investment in new plant facilities." • Propylene oxide and derivatives will be produced at Priolo, Sicily, at a plant to be built and operated by S.p.A. Celene, owned jointly by Union Carbide and Societa Edison, Milan. Initial capacity will be 25 million pounds per year of propylene oxide. Growing plastics and automotive markets are the attraction. First part of the Celene plant, for polyethylene, is being expanded to a capacity of 65 million pounds a year. • Witco Chemical digs deeper into phthalic anhydride. It will build a 30 million poundper-year plant on the East Coast. The unit will use a naphthalene oxidation process and is scheduled for completion by the last quarter of 1961. Last year, Witco entered the phthalic business with a 20 million pound-per-year plant at Chicago. Current industry capacity for phthalic is around 500 million pounds a year. This will climb to roughly 650 million pounds when expansions now in the works are completed. Phthalic output last year came to 343 million pounds and may go as high as 390 million pounds in 1960. For more news on phthalic, see page 48. )
• Claims by the manufacturer of Battery ADX2, a battery additive, that the product has been "proved before the Federal Trade Commission" and is "government tested and proved" are false, FTC charged last week. FTC's complaint charges that the product has not been approved before the FTC, tested or approved by the commission, or approved after tests by any federal agency as represented. Cited in the complaint are Pioneers, Inc., Oakland, Calif., and its president, Jess M. Ritchie. An earlier complaint against AD-X2 was dismissed by FTC, which ruled that the complaint was not sustained by the weight of the evidence (C&EN, May 28, 1956, page 2644). Before that, National Bureau of Standards studies on AD-X2 were involved in the request by Sinclair Weeks, then Secretary of Commerce, that NBS director Allen V. Astin resign (C&EN, April 6,1953, page 1375). • Engelhard Industries, precious metals giant, will make its first public stock offering· Four hundred thousand shares of Engelhard common will go on the block around mid-May, says Lazard Frères, New York banking investment house. Likely price: $25 a share. Engelhard will use part of the proceeds to repay borrowings, will add the rest to working capital. The company's 1.6 million shares now outstanding are all owned by Engelhard Hanovia, Inc. • U.S. Sulphur of Houston joins the ranks of Frasch sulfur producers as its plant near High Island, Tex., begins operating. The company is now mining sulfur at a 250 ton-per-day rate or 20% of capacity. It's waiting for a gas line being put down by Texas Gas before going to a 1200 ton-per-day rate within 60 days, says president Harry T. McClain. Stockpiling the sulfur as solid now, the company plans to ship in the molten form in barges soon to be received. Next to its $2 million Frasch plant, U.S. Sulphur plans a $6 million sulfuric acid plant to be built soon. • Michigan Chemical has bought a second drug company—Paul Maney Laboratories, Cedar Rapids, Iowa, which produces and distributes ethical drugs. It will be associated with the parent company's Pharmich Laboratories division. Already included in Michigan's drug division: recently-bought Metropolitan Laboratories (C&EN, Jan. 4, page 17), maker of injectable drugs. Both drug makers will continue to operate as independent units. Ultimately, though, the product lines will be integrated. APRIL
11, 1960
C&EN
33
