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SITTING IN HIS 100-sq-ft office piled high with academic journals and documents on a Friday afternoon, professor Wen Liu clicks through PowerPoint slides describing his lab’s recent breakthroughs in the syntheses of antibiotic compounds. Liu’s office in downtown Shanghai, though, is just a way station for the breakthroughs. They will move on to a recently built compound 90 miles away, where Liu has set up a different team to explore ways of applying his lab’s findings to the production of pharmaceuticals. Liu has a typical academic role at the Shanghai Institute of Organic Chemistry—one of China’s premier chemical research institutions, affiliated with the prestigious Chinese Academy of Sciences—and he also heads an enterprise in the nearby city of Huzhou, providing technological support for pharmaceutical companies. Established in July 2010, the Huzhou Biomanufacturing Innovation Center is a joint venture between SIOC and the local government. The center aims to improve the costeffectiveness of antibioti...

IN KEEPING TRACK of the drug industry, it sometimes helps to monitor the ads. For example, Pfizer recently launched a print campaign about its dedication to research in Alzheimer’s disease, an area that has yet to produce a cure. GlaxoSmithKline beat Pfizer to the punch, however, with television spots featuring a GSK researcher explaining how her family history spurs her to find a cure for the disease. No hard feelings. In fact, the two companies recently teamed up in a joint venture called ViiV to develop drugs to treat another intractable disease: HIV/AIDS. The ads and the partnership are evidence of change in both the science and the business of drug discovery and development. At GSK, research departments that were reorganized in recent years to focus on specific therapeutic areas are being broken down further to smaller, more aggressive teams. At Pfizer, an entrepreneurial approach to integrating biotech research continues even as the world’s ...

JUST A FEW YEARS AGO , it looked as if the nascent carpet recycling industry was ready to be rolled up and put in the trash. In 2001, Evergreen Nylon Recycling, a high-profile carpet recycling joint venture, announced that it was unprofitable and closed its doors. Two years later, Polyamid 2000, a large German nylon carpet recycler, declared bankruptcy and shut down. Other firms were knocked back by these closures with the result that overall recycling rates, already lagging, fell well behind industry goals. Since last year, though, the industry has been staging a surprising rebirth. The Carpet America Recovery Effort, or CARE, reports that recycling in 2005 was up 100% over the year before, and it is projecting another doubling this year. Numerous manufacturing companies that consume postconsumer carpet are opening up, and Evergreen Nylon Recycling, once dismissed as a white elephant, is on the verge of reopening under a new owner. Participants in the ...

For the past few years, U.S. and European chemical firms have made a steady stream of investments in China. Almost every week, some household-name chemical company acquires a facility, builds a plant, or enters into a manufacturing joint venture in China. Enthusiasm is high. In the minds of international corporate planners, China is the place to be. But the risks and uncertainties are hair-raising. China's constantly changing regulatory framework leaves much to be desired. Infrastructure is inadequate. Perhaps more serious, a review of 20thcentury China hardly provides a reassuring model of political stability. The country has gone through three revolutions. It experienced a humiliating period of semicolonialism under Japan and other world powers in the 1920s and '30s—the so-called international settlements—and later carried a heavy burden of suffering before and during World War II (1931-45) when it lost countless millions of its population. And it endured the "Great Leap Forward," the 1957-58 economic a...

Teva Pharmaceutical Industries, the world’s largest generic drug producer, and Takeda Pharmaceutical, Japan’s largest pharmaceutical company, are forming a joint venture to market generics in Japan...

Few companies grabbed headlines the way Dow Corning did in 1992. As reports came to light that the silicone gel leaked in some of the breast implants manufactured by the silicone materials company, some women charged that the leaks compromised their health and especially their immune systems. Dow Corning eventually admitted that some research, manufacturing, and testing of silicone breast implants were faulty. The ensuing scandal raised serious questions concerning the health of women who had received breast implants. Because of the controversy associated with the company's breast implants, chairman Keith R. McKennon has taken several steps to limit its long-term liability. And he has reorganized Dow Corning, a 50-50 joint venture between Dow Chemical and Corning Glass Works, to allow it to increase profits once the recession is over. Last March McKennon, who became chairman after the controversy began, permanently withdrew the company from sales of breast implants. In June, he put the medical ...

For 18 years, Genencor International appeared to be a quiet joint venture that made industrial enzymes. Then, on Aug. 2, it went public, and a very different face emerged. Now, Genencor is billing itself as a global leader in biotechnology that's entering the lucrative health care business. It's going to take the high-tech tools it uses to develop enzymes and apply them to making new products for the drug and personal care markets in partnership with big pharmaceutical makers. It's an inspiring plan, but it has a catch: So far, Genencor hasn't made any of these new products. Virtually all its sales are of enzymes like proteases and cellulases used in cleaning, textile treatment, corn refining, and other industrial applications. There's no doubt that Genencor has succeeded admirably in these fields. Using sophisticated biotechnology, it has modified bacteria and fungi to express increasingly effective strains of enzymes. It has won the business of major industrial ...

Lanxess, the world’s largest synthetic rubber producer, has struck a deal to sell 50% of its rubber business to the Saudi oil giant Saudi Aramco for $1.3 billion. Forming the joint venture will mar...

It's not every day that a major polyolefin and polystyrene producer launches a new business based on relatively untested chemistry. On top of this, the new materials are not even petrochemical in origin, but are based on renewable resources, and they are expected to compete with the major polymers in film, fibers, and containers. And to hear Dow Chemical and Cargill speak last week, their new polylactic acid (PLA) polymers venture will do just that. After completing a 15-month joint evaluation and development program, the Michigan-based polymer producer and the Minnesota-based agricultural products processor and marketer have decided to create a 50-50 joint venture, Cargill Dow Polymers, to develop and market PLA resins. Cargill, which already manufactures PLA resins for biodegradable applications, brings process technology and a low-cost manufacturing position for the lactic acid feedstock. Dow has the polymer science, applications technology, and access to a global marketing and customer base. PLA polym...

Dow Corning, the silicones-producing joint venture of Dow Chemical and Corning, has spent millions of dollars defending itself against consumer complaints that its silicone breast implants made women ill. Faced with 19,000 individual suits, and a possible increase in its $2 billion contribution to the $4 billion global breast implant settlement, Dow Corning sought bankruptcy protection last month. Since the late 1970s, Dow Chemical subsidiary Marion Merrell Dow has spent $80 million to defend itself against charges that its antinausea drug for pregnant women, Bendectin, caused birth defects. More recently, DuPont has spent $40 million to defend itself from charges leveled against polytetrafluoroethylene, which the company sells under the Teflon brand name. Medical device manufacturers used Teflon in temporomandibular jaw implants that were intended to alleviate a painful jaw condition. Some recipients charged the deterioration of the implants containing Teflon contributed to further suffering for implant ...

Big pharma drug development collaborations, such as Pfizer and Glaxo­Smith­Kline’s ViiV Healthcare HIV/AIDS joint venture, have become fairly commonplace. The Alzheimer’s disease pact among Pfizer, Johnson & Johnson, and Elan and the diabetes partnership between AstraZeneca and Bristol-Myers Squibb (BMS) are two other examples of two or three big drug companies joining forces against a huge therapeutic target. In contrast, a unique consortium of five major drug companies is aiming at an extremely small target: progressive multi­focal leukoencephalopathy (PML), a rare and often fatal viral brain infection associated with immunodeficiency that has primarily affected HIV/AIDS patients. The PML Consortium—composed of Biogen Idec, BMS, Elan, Pfizer, and Roche—is unique in that it is not, at least currently, involved in drug development. Nor was its formation compelled by an interest in treating the disease itself, which occurs in an estimated 3 to 5% of patients with HIV/AIDS. Instead, the group was formed ...

Biobased plastics firm Metabolix, founded in 2002, has partnered over the years with industry giants BP and BASF, but its joint venture with agribusiness firm Archer Daniels Midland was the deal that was supposed to catapult it into the big leagues. The goal of the joint venture, called Telles, was to manufacture and market Metabolix’ first product, a biodegradable polyhydroxyalkanoate polymer, in commercial quantities. Brand-named Mirel, the polymer is made from corn sugar via microbial fermentation. Early markets included horticultural mulch, trash bags for composting, and consumer products. But on Jan. 12, before Telles reached its fifth anniversary, ADM pulled the plug on the venture ( C&EN, Jan. 23, page 5). “Unfortunately, uncertainty around projected capital and production costs, combined with the rate of market adoption, led to projected financial returns for ADM that are too uncertain,” the firm said in a statement. With ADM out of the picture, Metabolix ...

An international energy industry partnership and the Department of Energy plan to construct what will be the world’s largest carbon capture and sequestration (CCS) facility at an operating coal-fired power plant. If successful, the project would be a game changer. It would demonstrate a profitable way to retrofit commercial-scale coal-fired plants and allow them to continue burning coal while complying with expected future limits on new carbon dioxide emissions. The Petra Nova project at an NRG Energy power plant near Houston is a 50-50 joint venture between NRG and JX Nippon Oil & Gas Exploration. The CCS system construction price is expected to hit $1 billion, with the firms contributing $300 million each and the ventureborrowing $250 million. DOE is providing $167 million for what Energy Secretary Ernest J. Moniz says is a first-of-a-kind project. When completed in 2016, it is intended to capture 1.6 million tons of CO2 annually ...

The European chemical giant Ineos is bullish on large-volume polymer manufacturing in the West. For the second time in just a few days, it has struck a deal that will increase its presence in a sector that others are seeking to leave. Ineos said last week that it will acquire BASF’s 50% stake in Styrolution, a joint venture the two companies formed in 2011 to combine their businesses in styrenic polymers. Only four days earlier, Ineos and the Belgian chemical maker Solvay firmed up plans for a joint venture, called Inovyn, that will combine the two firms’ European chlorovinyl activities. Ineos is slated to buy out Solvay three years from now. Both deals entail a significant investment by Ineos. The company will pay $1.5 billion for BASF’s share in Styrolution, which had sales last year of almost $8.0 billion, mostly in the U.S. and Europe. Taking over Inovyn will cost ...

Custom pharmaceutical maker Novasep will team up with a local partner to build Vietnam’s first plant to manufacture the drug ingredient sorbitol. The project is coming together soon after Vietnam’s adoption of a new strategy to promote local production of pharmaceuticals. Novasep will build the 20,000-metric-ton-per-year facility in Tay Ninh province, north of Ho Chi Minh City. Although the French firm is mostly a custom manufacturer of drug ingredients, its industrial biotech business unit sells process development services, single process units, and entire production lines to companies that make ingredients such as sorbitol and amino acids. The new sorbitol facility will be owned and operated by Tay Ninh Chemical Industry, a joint venture of Vietnam National Chemical Group and Tay Ninh Sugar. Its output will be used to make stabilizing and moistening agents for drugs, foods, and cosmetics. “This project is one of the first to emerge from Vietnam’s national ...

ACRYLIC ACID and its derivatives are in short supply, and the shortage couldn’t have come at a worse time for the paints and coatings industry. As the economy revives, paint markets are coming back to life. Paint manufacturers are now running at full tilt filling cans for the spring and summer house painting season. But many paint makers are not getting their full orders of raw materials and are paying increasingly higher prices for what they do get. Higher prices on store shelves and some spot shortages are likely to result. The problems are particularly acute for acrylic acid and derivatives such as butyl and ethyl acrylate. Earlier this year, Dow Chemical, the largest maker of acrylic acid and derivatives, began allocating acid supplies to customers because of mechanical problems at its Deer Park, Texas, plant. Arkema has had difficulty supplying customers since American Acryl, its Pasadena, Texas, joint venture with Japan’s Nippon Shokubai, shut ...

WHEN AN OLD chemical plant is closed, that’s usually the end of it. The best equipment is auctioned and the rest is scrapped. But that’s not necessarily the fate of a petrochemical complex in the West Texas town of Odessa that was shuttered earlier this year. A private group, which includes a former chief executive officer of the complex, wants to buy the plant and start it up. The Odessa complex had been running since John F. Kennedy was president, changing owners several times in its convoluted history. It started as a joint venture between the pipeline firm El Paso and packaging maker Dart Industries. They completed the olefins cracker in 1961. At its peak, the complex made ethylene, propylene, polyethylene, polypropylene, styrene, and specialty polymers. By 1983, the plant was in the hands of former managers. It went public as Rexene in 1988. Huntsman Corp. bought Rexene in 1997 for $600 million in a ...

The official unveiling earlier this month of a plant in the Netherlands that cleans contaminated soil by washing proves the wisdom of the old British saying, where there's muck, there's brass. Sited some 30 miles south of Rotterdam at Moerdijk, and capable of treating 75,000 tons of soil yearly, the $8 million facility is the largest of its kind anywhere, according to the Dutch company Heidemij Reststoffendiensten, with headquarters in Arnhem. This firm, which installed the unit, is a European leader in the soil remediation business. The Moerdijk facility is the forerunner of similar ones being considered for the U.S., the first of which is due to be built next year. These will be operated by a joint venture between Heidemij and Geraghty & Miller, an environmental services concern headquartered in Plainview, N.Y. Plans call for incorporating this joint venture as Alternative Remedial Technologies, or ART, based in Tampa, Fla. "Since the process calls for some ...

WHOEVER SAID, “It’s difficult to make predictions, especially about the future,” probably wasn’t referring to Fischer-Tropsch (FT) chemistry. But the adage is apt just the same. The economics of commercializing FT synthesis—a catalytic carbon-carbon coupling process for making synthetic fuels and valuable chemicals—are driven in large part by the projected price of crude oil, “which is incredibly difficult to predict,” Burtron H. Davis says. Davis, who is associate director of the Center for Applied Energy Research at the University of Kentucky, Lexington, says if the price of crude oil remains near today’s record-high levels, then companies would have strong economic incentive to build new costly FT plants. For now, however, only a small number of companies are investing in the new plants. One of them, Sasol, in a joint venture with Qatar Petroleum, is now completing the start-up phase of its recently constructed facility in the Persian Gulf state of Qatar. As plant operators ...

WHEN JURGEN HAMBRECHT of BASF and Andrew N. Livens of Dow Chemical, the heads of the world's two largest chemical companies, meet to break ground for a new chemical plant, it can be read as a strong statement of confidence that the plant's technology will work. The two chairmen were on hand in Antwerp, Belgium, late last month to launch construction of a propylene oxide facility. A joint venture between Dow and BASF, it is one of two plants—Degussa is backing the other one—that may become the world's first to use hydrogen peroxide to make propylene oxide. This technology, called HPPO, is meant to free propylene oxide from the creation of coproducts or from heavy integration with chlor-alkali production. At first glance, this liberation might seem like an easy task. For years, the chemical industry has been able to directly oxidize ethylene into ethylene oxide. But propylene has a greater ...

Following steep financial losses and a labor fight, Ineos says it will permanently close a petrochemical facility at its sprawling industrial complex in Grangemouth, Scotland. The firm has suspended operation of an oil refinery at the site as well. Closure of the petrochemical facility will severely affect Ineos’s downstream chemical operations as well as the firm’s customers. Annually, those companies make some $8 billion worth of products based on Grangemouth’s output. Now, they will likely be forced to reduce manufacturing in the U.K. and import chemical products instead, says Paul Hodges, chairman of the London-based consulting firm International eChem. In a joint venture with PetroChina, Ineos operates Scotland’s only refinery in Grangemouth. Ineos says it will reopen the refinery if threat of a labor union strike is lifted. The petrochemical complex features a 1 million-metric-ton-per-year ethylene cracker. Ineos had hoped to turn around the financial performance of the complex by ...

To help clear a path for a planned $20 billion in investments in Louisiana, Sasol, the South African energy and chemical firm, has agreed to sell its stake in its Iranian joint venture, Arya Sasol Polymer Co. The venture, to be sold to a South African affiliate of an Iranian investor, had become legally risky for Sasol as U.S. economic sanctions have mounted against Iran over its nuclear program. Sasol didn’t disclose the price of the transaction. It earlier valued the joint-venture stake at $223 million following a $191 million write-off of its worth. Sasol formed Arya Sasol in 2003 with National Petrochemical Co. of Iran to build a chemical complex in the Persian Gulf province of Bushehr. The partners completed an ethylene cracker in 2007. Polyethylene plants followed in 2009. Arya Sasol had been a solid performer for Sasol. In 2011, Sasol earned $45 million on $95 million in ...

In a further consolidation of the troubled European polyvinyl chloride industry, Belgium-based Solvay and Switzerland-based Ineos have agreed to pool their chlorine and PVC-related assets in a new joint venture. The venture will be the second-largest PVC maker in the world, behind Shin-Etsu Chemical and just ahead of Formosa Plastics. The partnership will have $5.6 billion in annual sales and about $340 million in before-tax profits. It will operate 17 plants, all in Europe, and employ 5,650 people. The plants make PVC as well as raw materials such as chlorine, ethylene dichloride, and vinyl chloride. The aim of the joint venture “is to improve its competitiveness in an environment which is, once again, a challenging one,” Solvay CEO Jean-Pierre Clamadieu told stock analysts last week. Europe has been a tough region for PVC makers in recent years. According to Solvay figures, European demand for the plastic, used in construction materials ...

Working with local partners, Huntsman Corp. and Shell Chemicals are planning new propylene oxide facilities to meet growing demand from Asian customers for the insulating foam raw material. Huntsman’s technology will form the basis of a joint venture with Sinopec affiliate Jinling to build a 550 million-lb-per-year propylene oxide plant in Nanjing, China, by the end of 2014. The plant will also produce 1.6 billion lb of coproduct methyl tert-butyl ether, a fuel additive used to improve air quality. Jinling will own 51% of the venture, to be known as Nanjing Jinling Huntsman New Materials, and Huntsman will own the balance. The two say the facility will cost $750 million to build. The deal with Jinling will “further our global expansion,” says Huntsman CEO Peter R. Huntsman. A spokesman adds that increased propylene oxide production in China will support a rising standard of living there. Shell’s propylene oxide technology will ...

Seeking to integrate its operations with inexpensive shale-based petrochemicals, the Mexican chemical company Mexichem will partner with Occidental Chemical to study the construction of a new U.S. ethylene cracker. Mexichem envisions a joint venture with Oxy to build a 500,000-metric-ton-per-year cracker. The ethylene would be converted at Oxy’s Ingleside, Texas, plant into about 1 million metric tons of vinyl chloride, which in turn Oxy would sell to Mexichem as a polyvinyl chloride feedstock. Mexichem and Oxy hope to have the study and basic engineering for the plant wrapped up by the second quarter of 2013. The cracker would open in 2016. Neither Mexichem nor Oxy produces its own ethylene at present. An abundance of cheap ethane feedstock derived from natural gas shale has rejuvenated the U.S. petrochemical industry in recent years. Since March 2011, other companies that have unveiled plans for crackers are ChevronPhillips Chemical, Dow Chemical, ExxonMobil Chemical, Formosa ...

In the wake of cutbacks in their respective research operations, AstraZeneca and Amgen say they hope to advance biologic therapies for inflammatory diseases in a development and commercialization joint venture. They will work on a portfolio of five clinical-stage Amgen monoclonal antibodies, including one, brodalumab, that has completed Phase II trials as a psoriasis treatment. The partners say AstraZeneca brings the expertise in developing respiratory, inflammation, and asthma therapies housed at MedImmune, its biologics arm, as well as its commercial inroads in respiratory and gastrointestinal diseases. The Amgen molecules have the potential to impact multiple indications, they say. Under the terms of the agreement, AstraZeneca will make a one-time payment of $50 million to Amgen, and the companies will share the cost of development and profits on any drugs commercialized. AstraZeneca will fund approximately 65% of development costs for the first two years of the joint venture, after which the ...

IN A $1 BILLION-PLUS bid to vertically integrate its business in the white pigment titanium dioxide, Tronox will acquire the mineral sands operations of South African mining conglomerate Exxaro Resources, the world’s third-largest supplier of TiO 2 ores. Tronox, which calls itself the fifth-largest global producer of TiO 2 , will get a 74% interest in two South African operations that mine TiO 2 -rich minerals such as ilmenite and rutile as well as a TiO 2 -rich smelting coproduct called slag. All the minerals are feedstocks for plants that produce purified TiO 2 pigment. The deal also includes Exxaro’s 50% interest in the Tiwest joint venture between the two companies in Australia. This partnership operates a TiO 2 plant that is back-integrated into mineral sands. In exchange, Exxaro will receive a 38.5% stake in Tronox, which is planning to list on a major stock exchange after the transaction is completed in the first half of 2012. Tronox delisted from the New York ...

DOW CHEMICAL and Saudi Aramco have approved construction of a $20 billion petrochemical complex in Al Jubail, Saudi Arabia, that Dow CEO Andrew N. Liveris is heralding as “the world’s largest chemicals project ever undertaken.” The joint venture, called Sadara Chemical, will consist of 26 manufacturing plants with more than 3.. million tons of total capacity. It will be centered around a steam cracker that will consume ethane and other natural gas liquids from Saudi Aramco, as well as locally sourced refinery coproducts. Downstream from the cracker, the partners plan to make polyethylene, propylene oxide, elastomers, glycol ethers, amines, isocyanates, and polyether polyols. Construction of the plant will commence soon. “We have bulldozers moving to the site in two weeks,” Liveris told analysts on a conference call. Dow expects the cracker and the polyethylene units to start up in 2015, followed by the rest of the units a year later. Solvay will form a joint ...

Mitsui & Co. is forming a joint venture with Dow Chemical to build a biopolymers complex in Brazil that will be integrated all the way back to sugarcane cultivation. Dow has been eyeing such a complex since 2007, when it revealed plans for a 350,000-metric-ton-per-year linear low-density polyethylene plant based on sugarcane. Brazilian sugar processor Crystalsev signed on as a partner but later dropped out. Under the new agreement, Mitsui will make an initial investment of $200 million. The Japanese firm is buying a 50% stake in Santa Vitoria Acucar e Alcool, a Dow subsidiary that is growing 17,000 hectares of sugarcane in the Brazilian state of Minas Gerais. Later this year, the pair will start building a 240 million-L ethanol plant that will start up in the second quarter of 2013. Eventually, the companies plan to build a plant that will dehydrate the ethanol into ethylene and a polyolefins plant of undetermined size ...

MAJOR JAPANESE chemical firms reported much better profits in their most recent fiscal year, which ended on March 31, than in the year-ago period. The March 11 earthquake did disrupt production significantly at many companies, but it affected only the last three weeks of a generally strong year. Japan’s largest chemical company, Mitsubishi Chemical, reported a record net profit of more than $1 billion, or six-and-a-half times more than the previous year. For most of the year, Mitsubishi enjoyed favorable conditions in Japan thanks to rising consumer and corporate spending. The firm said conditions became “severe” after the earthquake because it had to stop operations in Kashima, where it operates its largest plants. Sumitomo Chemical, Japan’s second-largest chemical producer, raised its net profit by 66%. It credited strong demand for electronic materials and higher margins for industrial chemicals. Sumitomo noted that the start-up of its Rabigh joint venture in Saudi Arabia in April 2009 boosted ...

CHEMICAL GIANTS BASF and Ineos have agreed to combine their styrenics businesses into a joint venture called Styrolution. The partners say the new company will be the global leader in styrene, polystyrene, and other styrenic plastics. With annual sales of more than $6.5 billion, the 50-50 venture will operate 29 plants in 11 countries and employ more than 3,000 people. The big joint venture will be the culmination of five years of restructuring for the styrene-based plastics industry, which has underperformed other polymer businesses for the past decade. In 2005, Ineos acquired BASF’s U.S. polystyrene business and formed a styrenics joint venture with Nova Chemicals. Earlier this year, Dow Chemical sold its styrenics business to a private equity firm. More recently, Ineos acquired Nova’s share of their joint venture, and BASF said it would spin off its styrenics business. Andreas Heine, who covers BASF for the European investment firm UniCredit, thinks another move may ...

AT A 2005 press conference to mark the start of production at a joint venture between BASF and Sinopec in Nanjing, China, a reporter asked the venture’s president, Bernd Blumenberg, whether the 600...

MERCK & CO. has unveiled details of its previously announced plans to lay off 15% of its staff, or almost 16,000 employees, following last year’s acquisition of Schering-Plough. The company will end activities at 16 locations around the world, closing an equal number of R&D and manufacturing sites. Starting this year, production will be phased out at eight manufacturing sites, bringing Merck’s global network to 77 facilities. The company will try to sell two of the sites—in Mirador, Argentina, and Miami Lakes, Fla.—while the rest appear earmarked for outright closure. The 29 animal health facilities that will be part of a pending joint venture with Sanofi-Aventis’ Merial unit are unaffected by the action. Research activities will be significantly affected by the consolidation. The decision to exit research at eight sites in North America and Europe will leave Merck with just 16 R&D facilities across the world. Organon, the human and animal health care business that ...

Leading off-patent crop protection chemical specialist Makhteshim Agan Industries has agreed to buy Iowa-based Albaugh in a deal valued at $1.3 billion. The transaction is expected to close by the end of the year pending government approvals. It will boost the reach of MAI, based in Israel, in the Americas and augment its manufacturing capabilities. Albaugh, the largest generic crop protection chemical firm in North America, will swell the Israeli firm’s annual sales by about $1.0 billion to about $3.1 billion, on the basis of 2009 results. It brings manufacturing sites in the U.S., Brazil, Mexico, and Argentina, as well as a joint venture in China that produces N -(phosphonomethyl) iminodiacetic acid, a raw material for the weed killer glyphosate. Albaugh, which has about 3,000 employees, is a significant manufacturer of glyphosate, as well as the herbicides 2,4-D and dicamba, various insecticides, fungicides, and plant-growth regulators. According to MAI, the acquisition will put it significantly ...

CHEMICALS, NOT FUELS, were the focus of many companies at the World Congress on Industrial Biotechnology & Bioprocessing, held last week outside Washington, D.C. As start-up firms search for elusive profits in industrial biotech, they are finding that making high-volume chemicals can be more lucrative than trying to compete with gasoline. “Biofuels were really hot two or three years ago, but over the last few years, firms have come to realize that it is very difficult to make money just on fuel,” observed Andrew L. Shafer, executive vice president for sales and marketing development at Elevance Renewable Sciences. A specialty chemical start-up, Elevance uses olefin metathesis to make products from oils such as palm, soybean, and jatropha. The firm announced during the meeting that it will open a commercial-scale biorefinery in Surabaua, Indonesia, as a joint venture with Wilmar International, a global agribusiness group. Set to start up next year, the facility will have ...

Amyris Biotechnologies, an Emeryville, Calif.-based firm that is devising biomass-fed routes to chemicals and fuels, has filed a prospectus with the Securities & Exchange Commission for a $100 million public offering of stock. The company is developing genetically modified yeast that converts feedstocks such as sugar into useful molecules. The company says its initial focus is on farnesene, a sesquiterpene that exists as a variety of isomers and stereoisomers. It intends to convert farnesene into diesel fuel and materials for detergents, cosmetics, perfumes, and lubricants. Amyris already operates a pilot plant in Emeryville and a larger demonstration plant in Campinas, Brazil. Earlier this month, it established a joint venture with Brazil’s Grupo Sao Martinho to establish a commercial plant at a sugar mill in Pradopolis, in the Brazilian state of Sao Paulo. The plant will cost up to $100 million and is expected to open in 2012. It may eventually consume as much as ...

BP SOLAR has ceased production of solar cells at its Frederick, Md., plant and will lay off 320 of the 430 employees there. The move spells the end for BP’s solar cell manufacturing in the U.S. The Frederick closure is part of a restructuring at BP Solar that will shift all photovoltaic manufacturing to its joint venture and contract manufacturing partners. Some of the production work will move to the Xi’an, China, facility of BP SunOasis, a joint venture of BP and Xinjiang SunOasis. BP also has a joint venture with India’s Tata and plans to ramp up capacity at the venture’s plant in Bangalore to 300 MW—about twice the size of the Frederick facility—by 2012. Last March, the company signaled that its commitment to manufacturing crystalline silicon solar cells in developed countries was waning when it closed its photovoltaic module plant in Sydney Olympic Park, in Australia, and said cell manufacturing in Madrid would ...

Dow Chemical has agreed to sell its Styron division to the private equity firm Bain Capital for $1.6 billion. Dow formed Styron last summer as a means of carving out polymer businesses that no longer fit its specialty chemical strategy. Styron generated $3.5 billion in revenues last year. The business includes styrene derivatives such as acrylonitrile-butadiene-styrene and expandable polystyrene. It also houses Dow’s polycarbonate, latex, and synthetic rubber operations, as well as production of some specialty polymers. Dow’s 50% stake in Americas Styrenics, a polystyrene joint venture with Chevron Phillips Chemical, is included as well. “We are committed to further focusing our portfolio by shedding nonstrategic assets that can no longer compete for growth resources inside the company,” says Dow CEO Andrew N. Liveris. Dow has sold a number of businesses since its acquisition of Rohm and Haas last April, including Rohm and Haas’s powder coatings and Morton Salt units as well as its own ...

Phillips Petroleum Co. and Chevron Corp. are joining the long list of chemical producers looking to fatten their bottom lines through massive mergers. The two U.S. oil companies have agreed to combine their chemical businesses in a stand-alone, 50-50 joint venture with assets valued at about $6.1 billion. Phillips has long been eyeing a petrochemicals joint venture. "We recognized that in our chemicals business, our assets were commodity related," says J. L. Qim) Gallogly, Phillips senior vice president of chemicals and plastics who has been named president and chief executive officer of the as-yetunnamed, Houston-based partnership. In uniting their chemical businesses, Phillips and Chevron are aiming for financial strength and a complementary fit. Based on 1999 figures, the revenues of the combined chemical businesses add up to $5.7 billion, with pretax earnings of $700 million. Phillips and Chevron will each take cash distributions of $800 million upon formation of the joint venture, which, as a ...

DOW CHEMICAL and an arm of the Russian energy company Gazprom plan to work together on greenhouse gas reduction projects across the globe. They hope to use Dow technologies to cumulatively cut millions of tons of carbon dioxide emissions for third-party customers. The deal links Dow with Gazprom Marketing & Trading, a London-based subsidiary of the big Russian firm. The companies say they will seek projects in the oil and gas industry that qualify for emissions reduction credits under the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change. Gazprom has already participated in such projects in Asia, South America, and Europe. Carbon reduction projects entitle participants to a credit, called a certified emissions reduction, for each ton of CO 2 that otherwise would have entered the atmosphere. The credits, which are bought and sold by companies to meet emissions reduction requirements, are worth roughly $16 per ton today. Rich Wells, Dow’s vice president for energy and ...

Dow Chemical has responded to Rohm and Haas's lawsuit over its failure to complete the purchase of the company for $18.8 billion. It argues that the combined company would struggle for survival now that its K-Dow joint venture with Petrochemical Industries Co. of Kuwait has fallen through. At the core of Dow's argument, filed with the Delaware Court of chancery, is he $13 billion bridge loan Dow secured to facilitate the deal. Rohn and Haas maintains that this loan, plus $4 billion in financing from Berkshire Hathaway and others, is well above what Dow needs to complete the acquisition. Dow counters that the loan, which needs to be repaid by April 2010, was never intended to be the primary finacial for the merger. "Rather, the bulk of the bridge loan was put in place as a short-term backstop in the event that the Rohm and Haas closing occurred before the K-Dow joint venture closed," Dow's ...

U.S. methanol plants are closing down under the unrelenting pressure of worldwide oversupply and low prices. The prognosis for market recovery is not good either, as around the globe several large, low-cost facilities are set to start up this year. Terra Industries recently idled production temporarily at its 280 million-gal-per-year methanol plant in Beaumont, Texas, one of the largest in the U.S. (C&EN, Jan. 25, page 21). Terra will cover its sales commitments from inventories. Georgia Gulf disclosed in its fourth-quarter earnings statement that it idled its 160 million-gal methanol plant in Plaquemine, La., in December after several months of operating at a loss. The company is importing methanol instead. In August, Sterling Chemicals closed the 150 million-gal methanol plant in Texas City, Texas, that it refurbished in 1996 with British Petroleum, now BP Amoco. And Fortier Methanol, a 190 million-gal-per-year joint venture between Methanex Corp. and Cytec Industries in Fortier, La., was down for ...

With a history of about 60 years, the polyolefin industry is mature. But recent developments in metallocene catalyst technology have breathed new excitement into the production of these most commonplace plastics (C&EN, July 6, 1998, page 11). Worldwide, the technology leaders in the manufacture of polyethylene using metallocene catalysts are Dow Chemical and a joint venture between Union Carbide and Exxon named Univation Technologies. In Asia, Mitsui Chemicals has developed other metallocene catalysts and production processes for linear lowdensity polyethylene (LLDPE) and has built a world-scale plant making use of them. Although Mitsui Chemicals, along with Exxon, has led efforts worldwide to develop metallocene catalyst technology, the Japanese company is off to a slower start in terms of market acceptance of its process. This is despite having filed more metallocene-catalyst-related patents, from 1981 to the present, than any other chemical company. The polyethylene produced through Mitsui's technology...

THREE NEW SOLAR technology investments signal a rare bright spot of capital spending by the chemical industry. The projects will increase capacity and advance research for chemical components of both traditional polysilicon solar cells and newer thin-film modules. The two largest outlays involve Dow Corning and will increase manufacturing capacity for polysilicon and silane (SiH 4 ); both raw materials have been in short supply in recent years. Hemlock Semiconductor—a joint venture involving Dow Corning, Shin-Etsu Handotai, and Mitsubishi Materials—will spend an initial $1.2 billion to build a polysilicon plant at a new site in Clarksville, Tenn. In addition, Hemlock plans a $1 billion expansion of its current location in Hemlock, Mich., to come on-line in 2011. Overall, the investments may total up to $3 billion and add 34,000 metric tons per year of capacity. Dow Corning’s second investment is in a silane plant to be located next to the Michigan facility. The company, which does ...

Led by China’s vice president, Xi Jinping, a delegation of top Chinese government and business officials visited the Middle East last week to sign agreements concerning the construction of petrochemical and plastics facilities in China. Saudi Basic Industries Corp. said it would boost its participation in a petrochemical complex already under construction in Tianjin and scheduled to open in 2009. SABIC owns half of the project through a 50-50 joint venture with Sinopec. When SABIC first announced its participation in January, the two sides expected that the project would cost $1.7 billion. The partners now plan to raise their investment to $2.5 billion to include addition of a polycarbonate unit. SABIC gained polycarbonate expertise when it acquired GE Plastics last fall for $11.6 billion. Just before the acquisition, GE had shelved plans to build a polycarbonate plant in China. In Qatar, the ruling emir’s heir apparent, Sheikh Tamim Bin Hamad Al-Thani, signed a letter ...

DOW CHEMICAL is shifting several major polymer operations into a new business group where they will be evaluated as candidates for a joint venture with other companies or for outright sale. The new group, called Dow Portfolio Optimization, will include Saran products, synthetic rubber, polycarbonate, plastic compounds, and specialty copolymers. Together, the operations have annual sales of close to $2 billion. Dow, which had almost $54 billion in sales last year, says it expects to add other businesses to the portfolio. The group is being created at a time of transformation for Dow, the largest U.S. chemical maker. Late last year, the company announced plans to sell a 50% share in its commodity chemicals business to Kuwait’s Petrochemical Industries Co. (PIC). Dow wants to use some or all of the $9.5 billion it will gain from that sale to acquire less cyclical companies or businesses. In a research report released last week, Hassan I. Ahmed, ...

FOLLOWING THROUGH on its promise to reduce its exposure to cyclical chemicals businesses, Dow Chemical is selling half of its petrochemicals operations to Kuwait’s Petrochemical Industries Co. (PIC) for $9.5 billion. Dow says the resulting joint venture will free it to concentrate on more technology-driven performance chemicals businesses. The 50-50 joint venture, expected to be completed by the end of 2008, will have annual sales of about $11 billion. It will include all of Dow’s polyethylene business, the largest in the world, as well as its industry-leading ethanolamines and ethyleneamines businesses. “This joint venture will be the player in the petrochemical field, make no bones about it,” said Dow CEO Andrew N. Liveris in outlining the deal to analysts last week. The partnership will also include Dow’s polycarbonate and polypropylene businesses, which are modest players in their respective markets. The joint venture will own Dow’s ethylene complexes in Fort Saskatchewan, Alberta; Bahia Blanca, Argen...

In its latest bid for low-cost chemical feedstocks and access to emerging markets, Dow Chemical is teaming up with Russia’s Gazprom, the world’s largest producer of natural gas. The companies, along with Sibur, Gazprom’s chemical arm, have signed a letter of intent to cooperate in hydrocarbon processing and petrochemicals. Dow and Gazprom will study the feasibility of forming a joint venture to process gas extracted from the Valangin deposits in the Yamalo-Nenets autonomous area in western Siberia. The companies are considering using the gas to feed a new ethylene cracker that could be built at one of Dow’s German sites. They are also weighing the option of building a petrochemical complex in Russia based on the gas. A Dow spokesman cautions that the cooperation is in its early stages. “We have been talking to Gazprom for some time about what we may do together; this is another step in that process,” he says. He notes ...

IN 2004, British sugar producer Tate & Lyle and Igene Biotechnology, a small U.S. company, jointly opened a plant in Selby, England, making astaxanthin, a carotenoid that gives salmon its characteristic pink hue. The plant employed a novel fermentation technique intended to challenge the traditional chemical synthesis used to produce the pigment. Last month, the joint venture shut the plant down. Stanley Musesengwa, Tate & Lyle’s chief operating officer, said the combination of escalating raw material and energy prices and falling selling prices “means that production of astaxanthin at the Selby site is no longer commercially viable.” The failed plant, in which the partners invested $25 million, is one of a string of projects launched by enterprising companies intent on breaking the stranglehold synthetic chemical makers have on astaxanthin production. Astaxanthin is added to the food of farm-raised salmon and trout to give their flesh the same hue that wild fish acquire from eating astaxanthin-rich ...