Zuari Fertilizers acquired close to 10% equity in Mangalore Chemicals and Fertilizers (MCFL) — 8% from a State Bank of India group entity and the rest from the open market, according to a press report. SBI Cap Trustee Company sold the 8% it held in MCFL for Rs. 38.5 crore. Zuari purchased 1.15 crore shares of MCFL, accounting for 9.75% stake for Rs. 44.3 crore.
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Clariant Chemicals (India) Ltd. board recently approved a proposal to divest the businesses of textile chemicals, paper specialities and emulsion products, for a consideration of Rs. 209.15 crore. The divestment of the company’s business includes a textile chemical plant situated at Roha. The Roha site has multi-business, multi-product production facilities and the textile chemical plant occupies a minor proportion in the overall site. This divestment proposal is subject to the approval by shareholders.
“Repositioning the company’s portfolio is an essential part of Clariant’s 2015 profitable growth strategy. Our vision is to further sharpen Clariant’s competitive edge as we concentrate on growing our core businesses,” Clariant Chemicals (India), Managing Director, Deepak Parikh said.
Chemical Industry Digest in its annual issue had reported that Clariant AG, Switzerland, sold its textile chemicals, paper specialties and emulsions businesses to US-based private equity firm SK Capital for $550 million. Clariant Chemicals (India), which is part of the Swiss speciality chemical giant, is following the parent company’s decision to exit globally from these ventures. Clariant Chemicals (India) is also into leather services, industrial and consumer specialities, additives and pigments.
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UOP LLC, a Honeywell company announced a new advanced membrane element to increase natural gas processing capacity. Honeywell’s UOP Separex Flux is a drop-in replacement for the membrane
element in existing Separex membrane systems. It efficiently removes contaminants such as acid gas and water, which should be removed before natural gas can be transported by pipeline for commercial use.
“UOP aims to help producers of natural gas maximize their output at minimal cost,” said Rebecca Liebert, Vice President and General Manager of Honeywell’s UOP Gas Processing and Hydrogen business unit. In addition to increasing the amount of gas that can be processed in the system, the membrane element removes more carbon dioxide per unit membrane area than existing membrane products. This helps debottleneck downstream processing units, lowering overall operating costs for gas producers. Of compact design, the units can be installed on-shore or off-shore, require little to no utilities, and provide very short start-up times and high turndown capabilities.
Decades of operation in natural gas service have demonstrated that Separex membranes are the most robust for natural gas service and can achieve the longest membrane life in the industry. Till date, more than 130 Separex units have been installed worldwide. Honeywell’s UOP recently rebranded its existing Separex cellulose acetate (CA) membrane elements under the new name Separex Flux. This product offers the same specifications and performance as the company’s current CA elements.
Honeywell’s UOP gas technologies extract contaminants such as water, mercury, sulfur and carbon dioxide from raw natural gas. Honeywell’s UOP also offers technologies to recover valuable natural gas liquids. The business has supplied technology to more than 3,600 individual process units for gas
processing in a broad range of applications throughout the world, including floating, processing, storage and offloading vessels.
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Environmentalists have demanded strict monitoring of effluent discharge in the Ulhas river, a source of drinking water for Navi Mumbai and Badlapur. For the past two months, students of Somaiya College, along with NGO Vanshakti, have been monitoring the chemical oxygen demand (COD) limits in the river. The COD limits were found to be more than 4,000 mg/l in the samples collected at strategic locations from Badlapur to Balkum. The permissible COD limit is 250 mg/l. The COD is the standard method for indirect measurement of pollution in a sample of water.
“The State Pollution Control Board claims everything is within limits, but reports show COD in the range of 500 mg/l,” said D Stalin, Director, Vanshakti. He said the river, while passing through regions with industrial estates in Dombivli, Ambernath, Kalyan and Ulhasnagar, gather large amount of chemical effluents.
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Saudi Arabian mining company Ma’aden will join hands with SABIC and US fertiliser company Mosaic to run a US$7 bn phosphate project in the north of the country.
The project will be based at the Wa’ad Al Shammal Minerals Industrial City and further processing plants will be built at the Ras Al Khair Minerals Industrial City on Saudi Arabia’s eastern coast. According to the partners, the new complex will be one of the largest integrated phosphate facilities in the world.
Ma’aden, Mosaic and SABIC will own 60%, 25% and 15% of the joint venture respectively. They will develop a mine and chemical complexes to produce phosphatic fertilisers, animal feed, food-grade purified phosphoric acid and sodium tripolyphosphate. The project is expected to produce 3.5m t/y of finished product, starting in late 2016.
Khalid Al-Mudaifer, President and CEO of Ma’aden, says that the project is not only an important milestone in Ma’aden’s growth, but plays vital role in the development of northern region of Saudi Arabia as it will include the first major industrial project to be constructed in the region.”
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KIOCL Ltd (formerly Kudremukh Iron Ore Ltd) plans to set up a rare earth joint venture project with SAIL in Kerala, according to a press report. The proposed JV is likely to involve certain State Government units also. The Union Ministry of Steel, the administrative Ministry for both KIOCL and SAIL, is understood to be involved in the deliberations on the project proposal.
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Specialty chemicals firm Lanxess is expanding its water treatment solutions business at its largest site, Leverkusen with an investment of around EUR 10 million. Construction work has already begun and is due to be completed by mid-2014.
Lanxess will build a new production line for weakly acidic cation exchange resins of the Lewatit brand, plus a 300 mt2 state-of-the art facility for food-grade-standard filling and packaging. One key area of application for these ion exchange resins is cartridges for domestic water filter systems. They remove unwanted calcium and magnesium salts and lead and copper ions from mains water and release other harmless substances in their place.
“Demand for special cationic exchange resins is growing at a rate of 3- 5% each year. That is why we are raising our profile and expanding our production capacities at the Leverkusen site by more than 30%,” says Rainer van Roessel, member of the Board of Management of Lanxess AG. Speaking about the new food-grade packaging facility, Jean-Marc Vesselle, who is responsible for the global ion exchange resins business at Lanxess said, “Demand for products for foodstuff applications is growing. Hand in hand with our capacity expansion, our highly efficient filling and packaging system will enable us to fill even greater volumes.”
Business unit renamed Liquid Purification Technologies
As of April 1, 2013, the Ion Exchange Resins business unit has been renamed Liquid Purification Technologies (LPT). The reason for this change is the significant expansion of the product portfolio with the addition of membrane filtration technology for reverse osmosis. The LPT business unit is part of LANXESS’ Performance Chemicals segment.
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BASF will combine its businesses of water solutions and oilfield and mining solutions effective April 1, 2013, to increase efficiency and support its growth strategies. The new global business unit will be located in Ludwigshafen, Germany.
All three businesses include parts of the polyacrylamide (PAM) value chain. Through this business integration, BASF is taking various steps to increase efficiency in its PAM operations. Significant investments are planned to upgrade the performance of existing production plants, create additional capacity, strengthen R&D efforts and establish a new bioacrylamide process for further cost optimization.
The company expects to reduce its workforce by about 215 positions worldwide. Most of the planned job reductions will occur at the Bradford and Grimsby, UK sites.
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AkzoNobel plans to invest a further €65 million in China. The investment will be used to boost capacity and significantly improve operational excellence at AkzoNobel’s Surface Chemistry manufacturing sites in Boxing and Ningbo.
More than half the money is being invested in the company’s facility in Shandong province, which was taken over as part of the acquisition of Boxing Oleochemicals in January 2012. As well as building a multipurpose reactor to expand local production capacity for amines, significant funds are also being made available to align HSE practices at the site with the rest of AkzoNobel. In Ningbo, a new alkoxylation unit will be built, bringing the total investment at the multi-site close to the €400 million mark. As part of the investment decision, AkzoNobel will exit the merchant fatty acid business in Boxing, closing down two out of three fatty acid plants at the site.
AkzoNobel’s Surface Chemistry business manufactures specialty surfactants, synthetic and bio-polymer additives, and specialty polymers. These products are used as formulation ingredients and process aids in many applications, ranging from home and personal care to asphalt road paving.
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Dow Corning announced the launch of its new range of silicone-based technologies and solutions for the rapidly growing Indian construction market. The newly launched solutions include sealants for panel bonding, as well as fire-rated joint sealants and acrylic sealants designed for internal perimeter of firerated doors and windows. Dow Corning introduced a premium performance weatherproofing sealant specifically designed for general glazing and weather-sealing of curtainwall and building facades. One of the innovative introductions is a transparent silicone structural adhesive (TSSA) - a new technology that eliminates the need to drill holes in glass for bolt fixation in spider fitted hardware in point fixed glazing systems. Another innovation is a high design strength system which can be used in high wind load environments. This is a unique design (patent pending) which can take care of the structural load of the glass face while at the same time using less aluminium and sealants.
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