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Byline: McCoy, Michael Disorderly Conduct: At this rural off-road adventure, the only things runners have to lose are their shoes By Michael McCoy Living History Farms 10-K Cross-Country Run Urbandale, [...]

FEATURES Any extraordinary achievement by a single person can either be processed by the rest of us as an inspiring revelation of our boundless capability as a species, or as quiet condemnation of our personal underachievement. Trott's Community Garden is a really good garden with well-informed plant choices and well-executed planting schemes. I'm led to wonder how these fabulous old trees survived the earthquakes in 2010 and 2011, and the liquefaction they caused, while many manmade structures crumbled around them. ccc.govt.nz/parks-and-gardens/christchurch-botanic-gardens • Broadfield Garden Stop in at this 3.5ha garden on your way from Christchurch to Trott's Community Garden. [Extracted from the article]

BASF AG, DSM, SKW and Merck KGAA are expanding their nutraceuticals operations to meet growing worldwide demand. Nutraceuticals include amino acids, polyunsaturated fatty acids and antioxidants.

Peter R. Huntsman has been appointed by his father, Jon M. Huntsman, the founder, chairman, and chief executive officer of Huntsman Corp., to take his place. Peter Huntsman's appointment will go into effect on July 1, 2000.

The papermaking industry is moving from chlorine as a bleaching chemical, favoring hydrogen peroxide and chlorine dioxide. As a result, Pacific Northwestern chemical companies are restructuring their holdings. Weyerhaeuser (Tacoma, WA) sold its chlorine business to Pioneer Companies (Houston, TX). Georgia-Pacific's chlor-alkali plant in Bellingham, WA is expected by some to close. Pioneer is buying other resources in the area, including plants from Occidental Chemicals and ICIC Canada. Chlorine is still in high demand to make PVC pipes. Though most PVC plants are not in the northwest. Other companies are mentioned, such as Dow Chemical, and Sterling Pulp Chemicals.

World's leading chemicals manufacturers Cabot Corp., Degussa AG, Copebras S.A. and Columbia Chemicals Co., have expanded their carbon black businesses and output through acqusitions. These companies plan to expand into Asia, considered the largest market in the world for carbon black.

Enzyme-based catalysis and fermentation are beginning to be utilized as methods of producing optically active pharmaceutical intermediates and are posing a challenge to traditional synthetic methods. At the forefront of this new technology is Glaxo Wellcome's Ziagen (abacavir sulfate), a treatment approved by the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) in mid-December for HIV (human immunodeficiency virus). Glaxo has contracted with UK-based ChiroTech and Switzerland-based Lonza, two companies with different synthetic approaches.

BC International Corp. (BCI, Dedham, MA) will begin construction of its first biomass to ethanol plant in Jennins, LA. Funding has been assembled from various sources. The only source mentioned was $11 million provided by the Department of Energy. The plant will be a retrofit of an existing, and now unused oil refinery, that had also been used as conventional grain-based ethanol refinery. BCI expects the plant to come on-line in 18 months, and will use bagasse (residue from sugarcane refining) and a patented strain of E. coli. The strain is unique in that it breaks down both five and six carbon sugars into ethanol. BCI also plans a plant in the Sacramento valley, using rice straw.

Viag (Germany) and Alusuisse Lonza Group (Algroup, Switzerland) have announced plans to merge. The deal is expected to be complete in August 1999. The new company, whose name has yet to be announced, will be owned 65 percent by Viag shareholders and 35 percent by Algroup shareholders. The two companies produce specialty chemicals. As part of the deal, 2 percent staff reductions are expected. Additionally, Viag's energy and telecommunications businesses will be blended into the new company. The new company will produce aluminum, chemical for pharmaceuticals and crop protection, chemicals for the construction industry, and oleochemical-based products for home and industry.

The biocide industry is not discouraged by the growing regulatory burden in the US and in Europe with some companies managing to turn the regulatory burden into a strategic advantage. Shomik Majumdar of Frost and Sullivan expects 1998 biocide sales to register $1.3 billion with annual growth posting a modest 4% rate. The European Union's Biocidal Products Directive is being seen by some companies as a possible strategic advantage working in their favor.

DuPont has entered into an agreement with Hoechst to acquire its coatings subsidiary Herberts for $1.89 billion in cash. DuPont's acquisition of Herberts came about after Kohlberg Kravis Roberts and Co., a New York-based investment firm, dropped its about $1.7-billion offer for the coatings manufacturer. The acquisition is part of DuPont's strategy of building its life science business partly through obtaining cash-generating businesses. The combined company is expected to generate sales in excess of $3.7 billion in 1998, with Herberts contributing $1.5 billion.

Monsanto's planned merger with American Home Products (AHP) has been cancelled. In June 1998, the two companies announced a merger that would create a $22-billion entity that has both Monsanto's new product pipeline and AHP's financial resources to develop biotechnology, agricultural and pharmaceutical products. Monsanto and AHP stated that they have decided to call off the marriage because it would not be beneficial to their respective shareholders. Analysts suspect that the merger was cancelled because of the failure of the two companies to agree on which direction the new company should take, coupled with personality differences between AHP CEO John R. Stafford and Monsanto CEO Robert B. Shapiro.

BASF Corp., the North American unit of BASF A.G. of Germany, will spend around $4 billion over the coming five years to expand and build new plants that take account of Verbund, or the company's strategy of total integration. About half of the investment will be spent on the chemicals unit, mainly at its sites in Freeport, TX, and Geismar, LA. The company's single largest North American investment is its 60% interest in a $1-billion joint-venture ethylene cracker being constructed in cooperation with Fina in Port Arthur, TX.

DuPont is firming up its effort to abandon the oil business by the end of 1999 by proceeding with plans to divest part of its Conoco energy division. In documents filed with the Securities and Exchange Commission, DuPont plans to sell 150 million Conoco shares, or roughly 25% of the division, for $20 to $24 per share through an initial public offering to be held in the fourth quarter of 1998. The remaining 75% of Conoco will be divested through a tax-free split-off in 1999. In May 1998, the company announced plans to drop out of the energy business because it wants to increase investment in life sciences.

AGA's restructuring into a three-division global entity was designed to consolidate its resources and technology for better functioning. The firm's restructuring, propelled by a new president and CEO, Lennart Selander, created a manufacturing industry division that sells cylinder faces and other equipment, a process industry division that sells bulk gases to the metal, chemical and food industries, and a health care division that markets medical gases to hospitals and health care providers. The reorganization, which also included a head reduction of some 500 employees or 5% of the company's workforce, was also made to maximize the firm's potentials in the global gas market without losing the expertise of the each of the divisions.

Hoechst intends to integrate the non-exclusive production technology rights it purchased from Mitsubishi Chemical Corp. when it sells its polyester business to a venture between Koch Industries of Wichita, KS, and the Isaac Saba family of Mexico City, Mexico. The rights to Mitsubishi's production technology for purified terephthalic acid (PTA) was acquired by Hoechst even in the midst of plans to divest its polyester business in preparation for its project to build a PTA plant of world-scale capacity in the Americas. The rights, acquired for an unrevealed amount, are applicable to both Europe and the Americas.

Rigid-polyurethane-foam makers in the US face the need to find an alternative for hydrochlorofluorocarbon-141b, a blowing agent they utilize in their manufacturing operations. Hydrochlorofluorocarbon-141b has applications in blowing polyurethane into freezers and refrigerators' inner lining and into rigid insulation boards. While a viable substitute for hydrochlorofluorocarbon-141b is yet to be discovered, pressure has been increasing for Rigid-polyurethane-foam makers to find a substitute for hydrochlorofluorocarbon-141b.

Great Lakes Chemicals' president and CEO, Mark Bulriss, has put together the executive team that will implement the firm's reorganization. Bulriss, who has already established a new corporate structure composed of four divisions, has picked C. Hugh Morton to head the polymer additives division. The others in the team include Louis M. Maresca, who will handle performance chemicals, Marshall Bloom, the new head of water treatment and Robert Hollier, who has been asked to lead the energy chemicals division.

Rohm and Haas has picked Rajiv L. Gupta as its new chairman and CEO and J. Michael Fitzpatrick as its new president and COO. Gupta, the present vice president for electronic materials and for the Asia-Pacific region, will replace J. Lawrence Wilson when he steps down by the end of 1999. Fitzpatrick, the current vice president and chief technology officer of the specialty chemicals company, will assume the positions that will be left by John P. Mulroney when he leaves the firm by the end of 1998.

Dow Corning has agreed to pay $3.2 billion to settle a case filed by women who claim that the firm's silicone breast implants made them sick. The deal, arranged with the lawyers who represent these women, was patterned after the over-$2-billion settlement for a similar complaint in November 1995 made by Bristol-Myers Squibb, Baxter International and 3M. Dow Corning is expected to emerge from bankruptcy in early 1999 provided the proposal survives further negotiations until September 1998 and is accepted by at least two-thirds of the claimants.

Occidental Chemical of Dallas, TX, has signed a letter of intent to combine its polyvinyl chloride operations or PVC with Geon of Avon Lake, OH, into a $2-billion joint venture that will create the biggest North American producer of PVC. Under the agreement, OxyChem will own 76% of the joint venture while Geon will own 24% in a new firm to be tentatively called Oxy Vinyls. It will have an annual capacity of around 4.2 billion lb of PVC, 4.8 billion lb of vinyl chloride, and 920,000 tons of chlorine.