Your Business In Brief - June 2007

Basell Moves And Expands

Basell North America Inc. will move its headquarters from Elkton, Md., to a new site this year. R&D facilities at Elkton will also relocate. No site has yet been selected.

Meanwhile, Basell plans to expand PP capacity at Bayport, Texas, by restarting a Spheripol-process plant that has been inactive since 2001. It has a nameplate capacity of 440 million lb/yr. After refurbishment and upgrading, the plant will start up in the second quarter of next year. Basell is also building a 700-million-lb Spherizone-process plant at its Indelpro joint venture in Altamira, Mexico, that will start up in 2008. To learn more visit Basell North Ameria Inc's PT Online Showroom

 

Chemtura to Exit Organic Peroxides

Chemtura Corp., Middlebury, Conn., will sell its organic peroxides business, including a plant in Marshall, Texas, to Pergan GmbH, a peroxide producer in Bocholt, Germany. To learn more visit Chemtura Corp.'s PT Online Showroom.

 

Taylor’s Sells Windsor

Taylor’s Industrial Services, parent of HPM and Sandretto, has sold Windsor Kunststofftechnologie GmbH of Hanau, Germany, to Francis & Associates, a U.S. investor. The new Windsor USA office in Hebron, Ky., supplies PlugXpress auxiliary injection units for multicomponent molding, custom machinery, spare parts, and maintenance and refurbishing services. Tel: (859) 689-1632 • www.windsor-gmbh.de

 

Billion Comes to North America

Injection machinery maker Billion SA of Bellignat, France, will begin direct sales of its machines in North America. The company has tapped OakTree Consulting LLC., Dundee, Mich., a plastics engineering and consulting company, to act as its North American sales and technical-service arm. Installation and machinery service will be done by Matcom Industrial Installations Inc., Vaughan, Ont.

Billion, formerly part of the Mannesmann Plastics Machinery group until 2006, offers five machine lines covering hydraulic, hydromechanical, and hybrid-electric types, with a specialty in multi-component machines (35% of its sales) and long-glass molding. Sizes range from around 40 to 2750 tons. The company has sold two presses for cosmetic packaging in the U.S., and previously had several coinjection press installations in Mexico, says Olivier Crave, general sales manager. Tel: (734) 529-5352 • www.billion.fr

 

SPI Launches Online ‘Career Center’

On May 1, the Society of the Plastics Industry, Washington, D.C., started up its new online Plastics Industry Career Center at www.myplasticsindustry.com. Job seekers will be able to post resumes and search for open positions for free. For a fee, companies will be able to post job openings, search resumes, and even receive automatic e-mail alerts when a new resume matches job criteria. The service is available at a discount to SPI members. Contact Barbara Darby, manager of workforce development: (864) 239-2939

 

Lati USA Moves

After selling its compounding plant, Lati USA, Inc., has moved from Summerville to Mount Pleasant, S.C. It now supplies thermoplastic compounds from its parent in Italy and focuses on two areas. One is high-performance resins like PEEK, PPS, PES, PPA, polysulfone, polyphenylsulfone, and nylon 12. The other is special properties like electrical or thermal conductivity, EMI shielding, radio-opacity, high density, self-lubricating ability, and high-gloss with structural properties.
To learn more visit Lati USA, Inc.'s PT Online Showroom.

 

More Resin Expansions

Two nylon producers have upped capacity through debottlenecking. Solutia Inc., St. Louis, added 88 million lb/yr of nylon 66 capacity at Penascola, Fla., while Honeywell Resins & Chemicals, Morris Township, N.J., raised nylon 6 output 10% at Chesterfield, Va.

In PPS, Chevron Phillips Chemical Co., the Woodlands, Texas, will double capacity of its Ryton plant in Borger, Texas, to 44 million lb/yr in early 2009.

In TPEs, Septon Co. of America, Pasadena, Texas, raised its capacity for hydrogenated styrenic elastomers (Septon and Hybrar) by 12 million lb/yr, a 50% increase.

And in fluoropolymers, Solvay Solexis will boost capacity for Solef PVDF at Tavaux, France, by 30% in early 2009. U.S. office is in Thorofare, N.J. The French plant ships Solef worldwide.