INDUSTRY & BUSINESS
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The Chemical World This Week NOVEMBER 30, i964 CONCENTRATES • Amoco will build α new plant to make dimethyl terephthalate and terephthalic acid; Mobil will build a new terephthalic acid plant: Amoco Chemicals' new plant, to be built some- where in the southeastern U.S., will be able to produce 200 million pounds a year of dimethyl terephthalate and purified terephthalic acid. Pro- duction should start in 1966. Amoco is also building a unit to make purified terephthalic acid at Joliet, 111. The unit should be completed next September. According to the company, it will have a capacity of "several million pounds a month/' Amoco has been making dimethyl ter- ephthalate at Joliet for the past five years. Mobil Chemical's new terephthalic acid plant will be built near Beaumont, Tex., five miles south of the company's existing refinery and chemical plant. Capacity has not been disclosed. En- gineering and construction contractor, C. F. Braun & Co., has begun work and is scheduled to complete the plant by the end of 1965. Raw material for the plant, p-xylene, will either be purchased or imported from Mobil Chimica Itali- ana's aromaties plant in Italy. Mobil Chemical is also doubling the capacity of its semicommer- cial terephthalic acid unit at Beaumont to 5 mil- lion pounds a year. That expansion should be completed by the end of this year. • Chances are that few U.S. chemical products will be exempt from tariff bargaining now going on in Geneva, says one U.S. official. The list of products on which the U.S. will not bargain has not been made public, but the industrial products on the list account for about 8% of U.S. dutiable trade. The European Economic Community's list of excluded products makes up about 19% of its imports and the U.K.'s list about 5% of its total. European chemical executives are pleased about the small number of products on the U.S. list but insist that the American selling price system must be revamped. (For more on American selling price, see page 24. ) • Jefferson Chemical will baild its third ethyl- ene glycol plant at Port Neches, Tex. When the new plant is completed late in 1965, the com- pany's total capacity for making ethylene and propylene glycol will be about 400 million pounds per year—360 million pounds of ethylene glycol and 40 million pounds of propylene glycol. Pres- ent capacity is 220 million pounds per year—180 (million pounds of ethylene glycol and 40 million pounds of propylene glycol. Jefferson will en- gineer the new plant. Construction will be handled by local contractors. • The United States" current 51% share of the Free World's low-density polyethylene produc- tion will drop to 40% in 1966, Kenneth E. Cosslett, National Distillers & Chemical Corp., told the United Nations' Conference on the De- velopment of Petrochemical Industries in Devel- oping Countries. The conference was held in Tehran, Iran. In 1956, the U.S. share was about 75%. Its share is dropping despite a threefold increase in U.S. production in the last eight years. Total Free World production should be 5.4 billion pounds in 1966. U.S. production should reach 2.2 billion pounds. • Marbon Chemical will build an acrylonitrile- butadiene-styrene (ABS) resins plant in Am- sterdam, the Netherlands. The $6 million facility will have an annual capacity of about 18 million pounds of resin. Construction will start next spring and should be finished by the summer of 1966. In other overseas ventures, Marbon, a division of Borg-Warner Corp., already produces ABS resins in the United Kingdom and Japan. • Two more acquisitions in the chemical indus- try were disclosed last week: Borden has acquired John Robert Powers Prod- ucts Co., a distributor of cosmetics in the U.S. and Canada, for an undisclosed amount of stock. The acquired company's line of products, sold mostly through department stores, includes face creams, makeup, perfumes, and bath preparations. Borden has formed a John Robert Powers and Marcelle Cosmetics division within its Borden Special Products Co. Ben H. Reese, Jr., former president of John Robert Powers, is president of the new division. Borden has been marketing the Marcelle line of hypoallergenic cosmetics since 1958. W. R. Grace plans to acquire L. E. Carpenter & Co., Wharton, Ν J. L. E. Carpenter makes vinyl wall coverings and textured vinyl products. The proposal, which calls for the exchange of four shares of Carpenter's common stock for one share of W. R. Grace's, still has to be approved by the boards of both companies and by Carpenter's stockholders. Carpenter's sales for the first nine months of this year were about $5 million; earn- ings were $346,637, NOV. 30, 1964 C&EN 17 INDUSTRY & BUSINESS
Transcript of INDUSTRY & BUSINESS
The Chemical World This Week NOVEMBER 30, i964
CONCENTRATES • Amoco will build α new plant to make dimethyl
terephthalate and terephthalic acid; Mobil will build a new terephthalic acid plant:
Amoco Chemicals' new plant, to be built somewhere in the southeastern U.S., will be able to produce 200 million pounds a year of dimethyl terephthalate and purified terephthalic acid. Production should start in 1966. Amoco is also building a unit to make purified terephthalic acid at Joliet, 111. The unit should be completed next September. According to the company, it will have a capacity of "several million pounds a month/' Amoco has been making dimethyl terephthalate at Joliet for the past five years.
Mobil Chemical's new terephthalic acid plant will be built near Beaumont, Tex., five miles south of the company's existing refinery and chemical plant. Capacity has not been disclosed. Engineering and construction contractor, C. F. Braun & Co., has begun work and is scheduled to complete the plant by the end of 1965. Raw material for the plant, p-xylene, will either be purchased or imported from Mobil Chimica Itali-ana's aromaties plant in Italy. Mobil Chemical is also doubling the capacity of its semicommer-cial terephthalic acid unit at Beaumont to 5 million pounds a year. That expansion should be completed by the end of this year.
• Chances are that few U.S. chemical products will be exempt from tariff bargaining now going on in Geneva, says one U.S. official. The list of products on which the U.S. will not bargain has not been made public, but the industrial products on the list account for about 8% of U.S. dutiable trade. The European Economic Community's list of excluded products makes up about 19% of its imports and the U.K.'s list about 5% of its total. European chemical executives are pleased about the small number of products on the U.S. list but insist that the American selling price system must be revamped. (For more on American selling price, see page 24. )
• Jefferson Chemical will baild its third ethylene glycol plant at Port Neches, Tex. When the new plant is completed late in 1965, the company's total capacity for making ethylene and propylene glycol will be about 400 million pounds per year—360 million pounds of ethylene glycol and 40 million pounds of propylene glycol. Present capacity is 220 million pounds per year—180 (million pounds of ethylene glycol and 40 million
pounds of propylene glycol. Jefferson will engineer the new plant. Construction will be handled by local contractors.
• The United States" current 51% share of the Free World's low-density polyethylene production will drop to 40% in 1966, Kenneth E. Cosslett, National Distillers & Chemical Corp., told the United Nations' Conference on the Development of Petrochemical Industries in Developing Countries. The conference was held in Tehran, Iran. In 1956, the U.S. share was about 75%. Its share is dropping despite a threefold increase in U.S. production in the last eight years. Total Free World production should be 5.4 billion pounds in 1966. U.S. production should reach 2.2 billion pounds.
• Marbon Chemical will build an acrylonitrile-butadiene-styrene (ABS) resins plant in Amsterdam, the Netherlands. The $6 million facility will have an annual capacity of about 18 million pounds of resin. Construction will start next spring and should be finished by the summer of 1966. In other overseas ventures, Marbon, a division of Borg-Warner Corp., already produces ABS resins in the United Kingdom and Japan.
• Two more acquisitions in the chemical industry were disclosed last week: Borden has acquired John Robert Powers Products Co., a distributor of cosmetics in the U.S. and Canada, for an undisclosed amount of stock. The acquired company's line of products, sold mostly through department stores, includes face creams, makeup, perfumes, and bath preparations. Borden has formed a John Robert Powers and Marcelle Cosmetics division within its Borden Special Products Co. Ben H. Reese, Jr., former president of John Robert Powers, is president of the new division. Borden has been marketing the Marcelle line of hypoallergenic cosmetics since 1958.
W. R. Grace plans to acquire L. E. Carpenter & Co., Wharton, Ν J . L. E. Carpenter makes vinyl wall coverings and textured vinyl products. The proposal, which calls for the exchange of four shares of Carpenter's common stock for one share of W. R. Grace's, still has to be approved by the boards of both companies and by Carpenter's stockholders. Carpenter's sales for the first nine months of this year were about $5 million; earnings were $346,637,
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INDUSTRY & BUSINESS
