GENOMICS TESTING
1
Alexander BUSINESS BP PLANNING OLEFINS SPIN-OFF Oil company will explore an IPO of olefins and derivatives unit Β Ρ IS PLANNING TO SEPA- rate its olefins and deriva- tives (O&D) business into a separate company that may be spun off in an initial public offer- ing (IPO) next year. The unit consists of BP's ole- BP's Chocolate Bayou, Texas, facility is one of its major olefins and derivatives units. Auer fins, polyethylene, polypropylene, acrylonitrile, and polystyrene businesses. It employs 7,500 peo- ple and represents roughly halfof BP Petrochemicals, which had overall sales of $16 billion in 2003. Major O&D plants are located in the U.K., France, Germany, Ohio, and Texas. The $2.7 billion ethylene cracker that BP is build- ing in Shanghai with China Pe- troleum & Chemical Corp. (Sino- pec) also falls under O&D. According to Byron E. Grote, BP's chieffinancialofficer, O&D products have been struggling compared with the company's higher profit chemicals like puri- fied terephthalic acid,/nxylene, and acetyls. O&D has "a good track record on cost reduction and volume growth, leading tech- nology positions, and significant growth opportunities—notably in China," he said. "However, in the BP context, its returns have been much less acceptable." In March, BP disclosed that it would focus on the more prof- itable products and sell its a- olefins and fabrics andfibersbusi- nesses. The α-olefins unit may now be included in the O&D spin-off. BP earlier agreed to sell its performance chemicals busi- ness —including isophthalic acid, trimellitic anhydride, and maleic anhydride—to Koch Industries. BP says it is targeting an IPO for the second half of next year. RalphAlexander, who will become CEO of BP Petrochemicals onju- ly 1, will head the new company The BP plan follows aprogram by French oil giant Total to form a new company out of 13 of its chemical businesses. However, Total is keeping its poryolefins and petrochemicals.-ALEX TULL0 CHEMICAL REGULATION GENOMICS TESTING U.S., EU officials to explore use of gene chips to assess groups of chemicals U .S. AND EUROPEAN OFFI- cials informally agreed last week to use genomics tech- niques to test whether chemicals can be lumped together in cate- gories of similar characteristics for toxicity assessment. Such categories are employed in U.S. and international efforts to gather toxicity information about commercial chemicals pro- duced in large amounts. Under a US. initiative, manufacturers of high-production-volume (HPV) chemicals—those produced in quantities of 1 million lb or more per year— are voluntarily provid- ing data on more than 2,200 sub- stances. Meanwhile, the Interna- tional Council of Chemical As- sociations is compiling basic da- ta on 1,000 HPV chemicals for the Organization for Economic Cooperation & Development. In both efforts, manufacturers have placed chemicals into groups so that toxicity data from one compound can be extrapo- lated to others in the same cate- gory rather than testing each sub- stance individually Although this approach is innovative, regulators and environmental groups have questioned the basis for some of the groupings. At the US.-European Union Transatlantic Environment Con- ference on Chemicals, held on April 26-28 in Charlottesville, VL, Ellen Silbergeld, ajohns Hop- kins University professor, chal- lenged regulators and industry to run toxicogenomics tests on cat- egories of HPV chemicals to de- termine if chemicals grouped to- gether do have like toxicity She suggested comparing the results to determine whether there are similar patterns of genes turning offor on due to exposure to chem- icals in a category Charles M. Auer, director of EPAs Office of Pollution Pre- vention &Tbxics, said it would be useful to know whether chemi- cals in a group provide consistent responses in gene arrays—even if regulators do not know how to interpret the results into possible health effects. Cornells (Kees) vanLeeuwen, of the European Commission'sJoint Research Center, said EU officials would work with the U.S. on apian for such tests.-CHERYL H0GUE 10 C&EN / MAY 3, 2004 HTTP://WWW.CEN-ONLINE.ORG I I Ml M I Μ Ι Ι Ι ' I I I I NEWS OF THE WEEK
Transcript of GENOMICS TESTING
Alexander
B U S I N E S S
BP PLANNING OLEFINS SPIN-OFF Oil company will explore an IPO of olefins and derivatives unit
Β Ρ IS PLANNING TO SEPA-rate its olefins and derivatives (O&D) business into
a separate company that may be spun off in an initial public offering (IPO) next year.
The unit consists of BP's ole-
BP's Chocolate Bayou, Texas, facility is one of its major olefins and derivatives units.
Auer
fins, polyethylene, polypropylene, acrylonitrile, and polystyrene businesses. It employs 7,500 people and represents roughly half of BP Petrochemicals, which had overall sales of $16 billion in 2003.
Major O&D plants are located in the U.K., France, Germany, Ohio, and Texas. The $2.7 billion ethylene cracker that BP is building in Shanghai with China Petroleum & Chemical Corp. (Sino-pec) also falls under O&D.
According to Byron E. Grote, BP's chief financial officer, O&D products have been struggling compared with the company's higher profit chemicals like purified terephthalic acid,/nxylene,
and acetyls. O&D has "a good track record on cost reduction and volume growth, leading technology positions, and significant growth opportunities—notably in China," he said. "However, in the BP context, its returns have been much less acceptable."
In March, BP disclosed that it would focus on the more profitable products and sell its a-olefins and fabrics and fibers businesses. The α-olefins unit may now be included in the O&D spin-off. BP earlier agreed to sell its performance chemicals business —including isophthalic acid, trimellitic anhydride, and maleic anhydride—to Koch Industries.
BP says it is targeting an IPO for the second half of next year. Ralph Alexander, who will become CEO of BP Petrochemicals onju-ly 1, will head the new company
The BP plan follows aprogram by French oil giant Total to form a new company out of 13 of its chemical businesses. However, Total is keeping its poryolefins and petrochemicals.-ALEX TULL0
C H E M I C A L R E G U L A T I O N
GENOMICS TESTING U.S., EU officials to explore use of gene chips to assess groups of chemicals
U .S. AND EUROPEAN OFFI-cials informally agreed last week to use genomics tech
niques to test whether chemicals can be lumped together in categories of similar characteristics for toxicity assessment.
Such categories are employed in U.S. and international efforts to gather toxicity information about commercial chemicals produced in large amounts. Under a US. initiative, manufacturers of high-production-volume (HPV) chemicals—those produced in quantities of 1 million lb or more per year— are voluntarily providing data on more than 2,200 substances. Meanwhile, the Interna
tional Council of Chemical Associations is compiling basic data on 1,000 HPV chemicals for the Organization for Economic Cooperation & Development.
In both efforts, manufacturers have placed chemicals into groups so that toxicity data from one compound can be extrapolated to others in the same category rather than testing each substance individually Although this approach is innovative, regulators and environmental groups have questioned the basis for some of the groupings.
At the US.-European Union Transatlantic Environment Conference on Chemicals, held on
April 26-28 in Charlottesville, VL, Ellen Silbergeld, ajohns Hopkins University professor, challenged regulators and industry to run toxicogenomics tests on categories of HPV chemicals to determine if chemicals grouped together do have like toxicity She suggested comparing the results to determine whether there are similar patterns of genes turning off or on due to exposure to chemicals in a category
Charles M. Auer, director of EPAs Office of Pollution Prevention &Tbxics, said it would be useful to know whether chemicals in a group provide consistent responses in gene arrays—even if regulators do not know how to interpret the results into possible health effects.
Cornells (Kees) vanLeeuwen, of the European Commission's Joint Research Center, said EU officials would work with the U.S. on apian for such tests.-CHERYL H0GUE
10 C&EN / MAY 3, 2004 H T T P : / / W W W . C E N - O N L I N E . O R G
I I M l M I Μ Ι Ι Ι ' I I I I NEWS OF THE WEEK
