ECN-European Chemical News articles from December 2004

ECN-European Chemical News archives from December 2004

Bhopal continues to haunt us.(Union Carbide India Ltd.)
December 6, 2004... Bhopal. The very name still haunts all of us in the chemical industry. What happened in the early hours of 3 December 1984 and its continuing legacy is an unresolved blot on the industry's reputation. Shortly after midnight, between 27 and...

Union joins BP redundancy debate.(BP REDUNDANCIES)
December 6, 2004... BP could find itself embroiled in prolonged negotiations over the 190 redundancies it is seeking to make at its Saltend, UK, plant, says Jim Mowatt, national secretary for the oil and chemicals industries of the Transport and General Workers...

UK chemistry higher education hits crisis.(Brief Article)
December 6, 2004... The crisis in the UK's provision in chemistry higher education has prompted iconic UK Nobel prizewinner, Harry Kroto to threaten to return his honorary degree to Exeter University, one of four chemistry departments that have announced their...

Kemira sells CPS stake.(FINLAND COATINGS)(CPS Color stake sold to Industri Kapital and MB Funds)(Brief Article)
December 6, 2004... Kemira sold its remaining 27% stake in compatriot CPS Color Group, last week for an undisclosed sum to the other major shareholders, Industri Kapital and MB Funds. The disposal will not result in any significant gain for Kemira, but...

Bayer sees profits leap.(Bayer MaterialScience AG)(Brief Article)
December 6, 2004... Third-quarter earnings at ayer MaterialScience (BMS) exceeded management's expectations due to booming demand for polymers, said BMS chief executive Hagen Noerenberg. Quarterly figures show sales up 18% and operating profit up 164%....

BIP sell-out.(Business)(Synthite)(Brief Article)
December 6, 2004... BIP, the UK plastics and chemicals manufacturer and distributor which went into administration at the end of November, has been sold to Synthite, part of British chemicals distributor Tennant Group. No price was disclosed for the transaction,...

P&G apologises for long delays in paving invoices.(P&G SOFTWARE)
December 6, 2004... Procter & Gamble has admitted to having difficulty paying its suppliers after installing new enterprise resource software. Two of the company' suppliers, which declined to be named, said P&G had taken up to six months to pay instead of the...

Bayer to scale back research and cut jobs and production.(PHARMA JOB CUTS)
December 6, 2004... Bayer has confirmed rumours circulating since chairman Werner Wenning said Bayer would reposition itself as a 'mid-sized pharmaceutical player'. Bayer's HealthCare company last week announced plans to scale back research and cut 560 jobs...

l'Oreal and Total end agreement.(SANOFI SHAREHOLDER PACT)
December 6, 2004... The shareholder pact signed between two of Sanofi's shareholders, Total and l'Oreal, ended last week. It was signed when Sanofi and Synthelabo merged in April 1999. The merger of Sanofi with Aventis did not affect the pact: it only reduced the...

Lonza sells Pasadena site.(US DERIVATIVES)(Gulf Bayport Chemicals)(Brief Article)
December 6, 2004... Lonza has sold the assets of its Pasadena, US, site to Gulf Bayport Chemicals for an undisclosed sum. The site, which was closed earlier this year, produced diketene derivatives for use in pigments and colours in pharmaceuticals,...

BOC stops supply.
December 6, 2004... BOC, the industrial gases company, has stopped supplying gases to Huntingdon Life Sciences (HLS) following an 'unlawful direct action' against its staff, carried out by people protesting against animal testing at Huntingdon. BOC said it worked...

Injunctions agreed.(Stop Huntingdon Animal Cruelty)(Brief Article)
December 6, 2004... Three senior coordinators of the Stop Huntingdon Animal Cruelty campaign have agreed to permanent injunctions in the UK banning them from harassing Huntingdon Life Science's employees or entering exclusion zones. Breaking the injunction could...

Wal-Mart sales stall.
December 6, 2004... Sales at Wal-Mart, the US retailer that uses about 2.27m tonne/year of polyolefins produced in the US, saw sales below expectations in November as the annual run-up to the Christmas sales started. Its sales growth was 0.7% compared to around...

Lyondell set to repay debt.(US ACQUISITION)
December 6, 2004... Lyondell Chemical has completed the acquisition of Millennium Chemicals, creating North America's third-largest publicly quoted chemicals company after DuPont and Dew Chemical. The merged firms, to operate as Lyondell Chemical, will focus...

Yara hopes bond issue will raise $500m to refinance bridging loan.(NORWAY REFINANCING)
December 6, 2004... Norwegian fertiliser producer Yara International has announced a US dollar bond issue to refinance the one-year bridging loan it took out on flotation in March 2004. The amount of the 10-year issue is not fixed and will depend on the value...

Henkel selects Chinese for R&D.(Henkel Chemicals Ltd., research and development agreement )(Brief Article)
December 6, 2004... German consumer chemicals group Henkel has announced a 500 000 [euro] research and development agreement with six research groups from five Chinese universities, starting on 1 January 2005. Henkel said the cooperation, along with its newly...

Petrochemicals lead industry back to growth after three years of malaise.(EUROPE FORECAST)
December 6, 2004... Europe's chemical industry could be showing the first signs of emerging from a three-year malaise, says Cefic in its latest forecast on the state of the industry. Growth in 2004 looks likely to have been about 2.4% (excluding...

Arch completes circle with micro sale.(JAPAN MICROELECTRONICS)
December 6, 2004... Arch Chemicals has completed its $160m sale of most of its microelectronic materials business to Fuji Photo Film. The price is subject to a post-closing working capital adjustment. The transaction included Arch's microelectronics...

RGT fires three bosses over unauthorised land transaction.(CANADA PERSONNEL)
December 6, 2004... Canada's vinyl products company, Royal Group Technologies (RGT), last week fired its ceo, cfo and chairman over a land deal that allegedly benefited the executives. RGT said it 'terminated for cause' ceo Douglas Dunsmuir and cfo Ron Goegan...

Polypropylene plant for sale.(BALKANS PRIVATISATION)
December 6, 2004... Serbia and Montenegro is to privatise its only polypropylene producer, Hipol. The country is looking for bidders that have been active in the business for at least five years, and made a profit of 20m [euro] in 2003. Alternatively,...

Producers eye Q1 recovery.(N-BUTANOL PRICE HIKE)(Brief Article)
December 6, 2004... After achieving price increases of 40-60 [euro]/tonne in quarter four (Q4), n-butanol producers have announced plans to see prices rise by up to 120/tonne [euro] in the first quarter 2005. The proposed hikes are largely viewed as recovering...

Predictions proven wrong as price hike continues.(METHANOL CONTRACT)(Brief Article)
December 6, 2004... Methanol prices are more than a third higher than industry sources had predicted at the end of last year. The fourth quarter contract stands at 230 [euro]/tonne, but players had expected that the arrival of the new mega-plants would drive...

Weaker dollar blamed for fall.(Brief Article)
December 6, 2004... The December benzene contract has fallen by 165 [euro]/ tonne to 705 [euro]/tonne. A dollar spot price of $934/tonne was taken and converted to the euro number, with some of the drop accounted for by the weakening of the dollar. A softer spot...

October sees production lump.(EUROPE CHLORINE)(Illustration)
December 6, 2004... Chlorine production in western Europe rallied in October, rising 9.3% on September's volumes to 837 414 tonne. Daily production increased by 5.8% to 27 013 tonne. However, caustic soda stocks have slumped to 242 103 tonne--their lowest...

BP: beating a hasty retreat from acetone.(ACETONE PRODUCTION)
December 6, 2004... BP Chemicals is to close two of its acids and acetone plants at Saltend near Hull in the UK, signalling BP's complete withdrawal from the acetone market. The DF2 and DF3 units produce a combined 380 000 tonne/year of acetic acid, formic acid,...

BASF acid plans.
December 6, 2004... BASF plans to raise the price of monocarboxylic acids from 1 December. Propionic acid, 2-Ethylhexanoic acid and formic acid will increase by between 50-150 [euro]/tonne in Europe. jane.gibson@rbi.co.uk

More pressures for ACN.(acrylonitrile market)(Brief Article)
December 6, 2004... European acrylonitrile (ACN) producers have secured price increases of 80/tonne [euro] for fourth quarter contracts (Q4) for large consumers, bringing prices up to 1170-1210 [euro]/tonne FD. Sellers claim that smaller purchasers may be paying...

Users bear brunt of cost battle.(plastics converting industry)
December 6, 2004... Crippling raw material costs and shrinking margins have made an early recovery for the European plastics converting industry unlikely. According to Brussels-based EuPC, the trade association representing Europe's converters, margins have...

Seasonal slowdown starts to kick in: Naphtha prices rose in response to higher crude oil prices; the remainder of the market, however, appears fairly static. Meanwhile, it seems that ethylene buyers are holding out for lower prices.(Market trends)
December 6, 2004... Naphtha has moved up to $440-445/tonne cif NWE, racking higher crude oil prices, which once again went above $50/bbl in the US. Demand from the petrochemical sector has diminished as flexible crackers maximise propane use. Ethylene spot...

Producers' prices: 'take it or leave it': as the plastics market faces the consequences of various outages and raw material shortages, producer and converter inventories remain low, and price rises have been announced for December.(Plastics monitor)
December 6, 2004... Limited availability has been the key feature of the European commodity plastics markets in November. A series of unscheduled and scheduled cracker outages has decreased monomer availability to polymer producers. A lack of monomer and plant...

Toluene: exports to Asia are keeping European markets more balanced. Prices have reached record highs as energy costs soar.(Product profile)
December 6, 2004... Uses Toluene is used in large quantities as an octane booster in gasoline but most of that portion is never removed from refinery streams. Its major chemical use is to make xylenes (and benzene) via disproportionation (TDP), or benzene via...

Lanxess transfer.(Bayer AG's exclusive distribution rights )(Brief Article)
December 6, 2004... Bayer spin-off company Lanxess has taken over exclusive distribution rights for the material protection products of Bayer Environmental Science, a business group of Bayer CropScience. The arrangement focuses on wood protection products and...

Marine pollution.
December 6, 2004... Almost 40% of the vessels flying an EU member state flag have failed to comply with Marpol convention rules for preventing marine pollution during the past four years. This was one of the findings of a report by marine NGO Oceana into what it...

Ship standards.
December 6, 2004... International Maritime Organisation members meeting this week in London, UK, plan to put the development of new goal-based standards for ship construction at the top of the agenda for discussion. Committee members will debate whether these...

Brenntag warehouse 'most modern, most expensive'.(GERMANY STORAGE)
December 6, 2004... Just months after construction began in February, Brenntag has inaugurated what it claims is the 'most state-of-the-art' warehouse facility in Europe. Located at Duisburg-Huttenheim in the North Rhine-Westphalia region of Germany, the...

ESPO guide for policymakers.(SEAPORTS POLICY)
December 6, 2004... The European Sea Ports Organisation (ESPO) has published 'a practical guide for EU policymakers' on seaport policy, addressing issues which it says should have been debated before the Commission issued its new directive (Port Package 2)...

Total recall: Merck's Vioxx isn't the first blockbuster to fall from grace.(Pharmaceuticals: challenges)(Cover Story)
December 6, 2004... Efforts to push new pharmaceutical products on to the market and extend the uses of existing products have not brought the rewards many major producers had bargained for. Product withdrawals and class action lawsuits are leaving investors in...

Looking to 2015: BASF's intermediates division has produced falling profits for the past few years. Dede Williams asks whether its new strategy of putting value before volume will make a difference.(Pharmaceuticals: intermediates)(Cover Story)
December 6, 2004... Walter Gramlich, head of BASF's intermediates division since April 2003, is facing the formidable task of turning around a business that has seen sagging profits for a number of years. Gramlich is in charge of implementing BASF chairman Jurgen...

Getting personal: the pharmaceutical industry may undergo major changes over the next 20-30 years, reports Cath O'Driscoll, as medicines become specifically aimed at target groups of patients.(Pharmaceuticals: tailored medicines)(Cover Story)
December 6, 2004... For decades, the pharmaceutical industry has grown rich by pursuing the same strategy. Pharma company coffers have swelled wholesale on the back of blockbuster drugs developed against mankind's most common diseases. They are used by thousands...

Overcoming all obstacles: despite two of its drugs suffering setbacks recently, AstraZeneca remains confident that it will meet its earnings-per-share targets for this year.(Pharmaceuticals: AstraZeneca)(Cover Story)
December 6, 2004... In the first half of 2004, sales at AstraZeneca were up 13% to $10.4bn for the period, with so-called growth products contributing 35% growth to what chief executive officer Tom McKillop called 'a good first half'. The results included a...

Eastern influence: Western fine chemicals companies should tap into expertise in India, not shy away from its perceived threat. Alan Tyler reports from the European Fine Chemicals Conference in Newcastle, UK.(Pharmaceuticals: fine chemicals)(Cover Story)
December 6, 2004... While Western fine chemicals companies have been breaking into a cold sweat at the threat posed by low-cost Chinese producers, Indian manufacturers have been slowly but steadily building significant business supplying advanced pharmaceutical...

Conferences.(Diary)(Calendar)
December 6, 2004... EPL meeting 15 December Brussels, Belgium Website www.epl-online.org E-mail EPLU@bms-chem.be 7th International conference of chemical engineering 27-29 December Cairo, Egypt Tel +1 202 5770391/+1 202 5770890 Fax...

Cyclics.(People on the move)
December 6, 2004... German plastics manufacturer Cyclics has hired Barry Aubrey as account manager for its rotational moulding products. Aubrey will be responsible for leading the CBT resin sales effort in both North and South America. He has a technical...

Galadeno.(People on the move)
December 6, 2004... Graham Dixon joins genomics-based drug discovery company Galadeno as chief scientific officer.

Kemira.(People on the move)
December 6, 2004... Recent appointments at Kemira, the Finnish chemicals group, include a new general counsel for the group and a new vice-president, who will also function as group treasurer. Sami Koski is the new general counsel and Jukka Ryhanen is the new...

SF-Chem.(Ueli Roost appointed as chief executive officer)(Brief Article)
December 6, 2004... Swiss chemicals company SF-Chem has appointed Ueli Roost as its new chief executive officer. Roost's professional career started more than 30 years ago with Ciba-Geigy in Basel, Switzerland, and Tons River in the US. In the early 1980s he...

Tank Storage Association.(People on the move)
December 6, 2004... The Tank Storage Association (TSA) has named Martyn Lyons as its new chairman. Lyons, operations director of Simon Storage, has been an active member of the TSA executive council since 1999 and represents TSA on a number of industry...

25 years ago: ECN 3 December 1979.(Diary)
December 6, 2004... As Europe's bulk thermoplastics producers near the end of a near characterised by concerted attempts to keep price levels abreast of escalating feedstock price rises, ECN contacted major manufacturers to assess the success of the year's prices...

Methyl bromide users win soil fumigant exemptions.(agricultural industry)(Brief Article)
December 6, 2004... Farmers in developed regions have won further exemptions for the use of methyl bromide as a soil fumigant, ahead of its full phase-out from developed world agriculture next year. For 2005, an exemption of just over 12 150 tonne has been...

Support for Reach improvements.(chemicals legislation)(Brief Article)
December 6, 2004... Type chemical industry, environment groups, retailers and stakeholders all back the UK government's stance to improve the EU's Reach chemical legislation. So concluded a consultation on Reach launched in March by the UK government's Department...

US body slams freshener warning.(Consumer Specialty Products Association, European consumer organisation)(Brief Article)
December 6, 2004... US Consumer Specialty Products Association (CSPA) has reacted angrily to claims made last week by the European consumer organisation BEUC that many household air fresheners contain hazardous chemicals (ECN 29 November). CSPA president...

ICCA expands.
December 6, 2004... At its recent annual meeting in Rome, the International Council of Chemical Associations (ICCA) admitted Bulgaria, Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania and Slovenia into the ICCA Responsible Care leadership group. This brings the number of countries...

Pesticide cleanup.
December 6, 2004... Lithuania will get rid of all stored pesticide waste by 2006. Last month, a further batch of 41 tonne was transported from the Silute district to Hamburg, Germany, for processing by German company AVG. The company, which won a contract to...

Solvent exemption.(Lyondell Chemical Co., tertiary butyl acetate)(Brief Article)
December 6, 2004... The US Environmental Protection Agency has signed a final agreement excluding tertiary butyl acetate from its definition of a volatile organic compound on the grounds of its negligible photochemical reactivity. Lyondell is the only large-scale...

Reduce waste call.(minimise hazardous waste production)(Brief Article)
December 6, 2004... The latest conference of the parties to the Basel convention on control of transboundary movements of hazardous wastes and their disposal has called for greater efforts to minimise hazardous waste production at source. This would, said the...

Novartis withdraws Prexige application.(NOVARTIS WITHDRAWAL)
December 6, 2004... Novartis has temporarily withdrawn its EU-wide marketing application for its Prexige cyclo-oxygenase-2 (Cox-2) inhibitor drug (lumiracoxib) after adverse side effects encountered by Merck's Vioxx (see page 20). It said it will await the outcome...

Helsinn raises HPAI capacity.(Helsinn Chemicals )(high potency active ingredients)(Brief Article)
December 6, 2004... Switzerland's Helsinn Chemicals is expanding capacity for high potency active ingredients (HPAIs) next year at its facility in Biasca, Switzerland. The new plant will be a small-scale manufacturing unit, capable of satisfying clinical phase...

Ark gains GMP status in Finland.(FINLAND APPROVAL)
December 6, 2004... Ark Therapeutics Group of the UK has been given Good Manufacturing Practice status for its facility in Kuopio, Finland. The move follows an inspection by the Finnish National Agency for Medicines on behalf of the European Medicines Agency. ...

GSK to use Workflow processor.(TECHNOLOGY INFORSENSE)
December 6, 2004... InforSense, developer of Open Discovery Workflow informatics platforms, has licensed its technology to GlaxoSmithKline (GSK) Cheminformatics, to provide an innovative workflow-based decision support environment for discovery scientists. ...

Henkel in China.(Henkel adhesive research)(Brief Article)
December 6, 2004... Henkel says it will launch a $500 000 R&D cooperation project on applied adhesion with five Chinese universities, beginning in January 2005. Initially set to run for two years, the cooperation will develop a new generation of adhesives and...

Seeds suit ends.
December 6, 2004... Syngenta and DuPont have settled their dispute over seed patent infringements. An agreement, signed on 29 November, settles a case Syngenta Seeds had brought against DuPont's Pioneer Hi-Bred in 2002, in an action that also included Monsanto and...

Batch success.
December 6, 2004... Warwick Effect Polymers (WEP) in the UK has successfully scaled up its living controlled-polymerisation technology, producing a batch of 150kg for the first time. WEP is now set to produce multi-kilo batches of a specific polymer for potential...

Plastic fuel cell.
December 6, 2004... Ticona claims to have made the first fuel cell prototype made solely of engineering thermoplastics. The design is said to lower fuel cell costs by at least 50% against those fabricated with other materials. The 17-cell unit uses plates of...

Dilute ethylene could save styrene producers money.(EUROPE COST-SAVINGS)
December 6, 2004... Styrene producers could gain significant cost advantages by using dilute ethylene feedstock, according to Lee Fagg, consultant at Nexant ChemSystems. He says conventional west European styrene producers could achieve savings on a par with...

Catalyst boosts BP lldPE plant.(UK FILM GRADES)
December 6, 2004... Installation of a catalyst in BP's linear low-density polyethylene (lldPE) plant in Grangemouth, UK, has lifted productivity to meet growing demand. According to BP, the Innovene 4 unit, with a capacity of 320 000 tonne/year, has achieved...

Enzyme to aid peptide creation.(JAPAN ENZYMATIC METHOD)
December 6, 2004... Japan's Ajinomoto has developed an enzymatic method to make peptides with important physiological features. It believes demand for peptides will be 'expanded remarkably' using the new manufacturing process. In the Ajinomoto process, an...

Jacobs cracks it.
December 6, 2004... ChevronTexaco has awarded Jacobs Engineering Group a contract of undisclosed value for the modification of a fluid catalytic cracker at the company's Pascagoula, Mississippi, US, refinery. Jacobs will provide engineering, design and procurement...

Olefins II financed.
December 6, 2004... National Bank of Kuwait and Kuwait Finance House have arranged a $600m bridge facility for Equate's Olefins II project in Kuwait (ECN 21 Nov). The loan was arranged with the participation of 20 regional and international banks, including the...

Dolphin terminal.(Dolphin Energy contracts)(Brief Article)
December 6, 2004... A consortium of Technip and Al Jaber Energy Services has been awarded a lump sum turnkey contract worth approximately $62m by Dolphin Energy for a new terminal to receive and distribute natural gas from Qatar to the United Arab Emirates. The...

Polyolefin boost.(Arkema Orevac functional polyolefins capacity increase)(Brief Article)
December 6, 2004... Arkema has announced a major increase in its production of Orevac functional polyolefins at its Mont facility in south-west France. The Orevac production capacity will be boosted by 10 000 tonne/year at completion in December 2005. This...

Bayer plans aniline increase.(Bayer MaterialScience aniline production management)(Brief Article)
December 6, 2004... Rising world demand for polyurethane and its precursors has prompted Bayer MaterialScience to invest in additional aniline capacity. A new 50 000 tonne/year plant will be completed in Antwerp, Belgium, in early 2006. Bayer said an...

ExxonMobil considers new naphtha cracker in Singapore.(SINGAPORE NAPHTHA)
December 6, 2004... ExxonMobil is discussing the possibility of building a second naphtha cracker with the Singapore government. In Singapore, ExxonMobil currently operates two refineries with a total capacity of 580 000 bbl/day and one 800 000 tonne/ year...

Gail and NPS pull Iran cracker.(IRAN GAS CRACKER)
December 6, 2004... Gail India and the National Petrochemical Company (NPC) of Iran have decided to jointly set up a gas cracker in Iran, with a capacity of between 800 000 and 1m tonne/year. The cracker will require an investment of Rupee80-100bn (1.3bn...

Akzo Nobel ups ethylene amines.(SWEDEN ETHYLENE AMINES)
December 6, 2004... Akzo Nobel is to increase capacity at its ethylene amines plant in Stenungsund, Sweden, transforming the site into one of the largest facilities of its kind in the world. The expansion will be carried out in the second quarter next year,...

Port of Rotterdam to site Micro Chemie project.(THE NETHERLANDS MELAMINE)
December 6, 2004... A new melamine plant is being planned in the Port of Rotterdam, the Netherlands, by Micro Chemie. The company, which was set up in 2002 by ex-Kemira employees Leon Lampers and Hans Vrijenhoef, has taken over part of Kemira's old fertiliser...

IFC may fund DSCL expansion.(International Finance Corporation , DCM Shriram Consolidated Ltd.)(Brief Article)
December 6, 2004... Washington, US-based International Finance Corporation (IFC) is considering lending $30m to India's DCM Shriram Consolidated (DSCL) to fund part of its $74.2m brownfield expansion project. IFC's board of directors is expected to consider...

PTL to build BOPET plant.(TURKEY POLYPLEX)
December 6, 2004... Polyplex (Thailand) (PTL) will begin constructing a biaxially oriented polyethylene terephthalate (BOPET) film plant in Turkey in late December. PTL, a subsidiary of India's Polyplex Corp, will build the 24 000 tonne/year BOPET film plant...

Lanxess polychloroprene.(raised capacity)(Brief Article)
December 6, 2004... Lanxess is spending 7m [euro] to upgrade polychloroprene production at Dormagen, Germany. Work has started on the project, which will raise capacity from 65 000 tonne/ year to 80 000 tonne/year, and includes new process control as well as...

Basell and Sahara in jv.(SAUDI ARABIA POLYPROPYLENE)
December 6, 2004... Basell and Sahara Petrochemical have signed an agreement to form a joint venture (jv) to construct a 450 000 tonne/ year polypropylene (PP) plant and propane dehydrogenation unit in Saudi Arabia. The jv will be formed in 2005 and the...

Petrobras plans fertiliser plant.(BRAZIL AMMONIA/UREA)
December 6, 2004... Petrobras plans to invest $600m in an ammonia/urea complex in central-west Brazil. The project will be based on natural gas transported from Bolivia by the Bolivia-Brazil gas pipeline and is due onstream in 2009. The project will raise...

Ethanol boost.
December 6, 2004... Petrojam, a subsidiary of Jamaica's Petroleum Corp, is revamping a 480 000 litre/day (125 000 tonne/year) ethanol dehydration plant in Kingston, Jamaica. Petrojam mothballed the plant in 1997 after supplies of feedstock, in the form of wine...

Sibur ups ethylene.
December 6, 2004... Russia's Sibur-Neftekhim aims to raise ethylene output at its Kstovo petrochemical plant at Dzerzhinsk in the Nizhny Novgorod region of Central Russia, to 360 000 tonne/year. As the result of an ongoing modernisation programme at the plant,...

Ukraine ups PP.(Linos to boost polypropylene output)(Brief Article)
December 6, 2004... The Ukraine's Linos is planning to boost its polypropylene (PP) output at its Lishichansk refinery. Linos produced 78 000 tonne of PP last year and in January-September 2004 output reached 72 100 tonne. Linos now hopes to raise its annual PP...

PBS hike in US.
December 6, 2004... Great Lakes Chemical is doubling the capacity of its polybrominated styrene series of performance brominated flame retardants in the US with an investment of less than $10m. At the company's south Arkansas plant a new bromine supply well will...