Coatings World - September 2008

I ndustry News
Lanxess to move headquarters to Cologne

Lanxess AG plans to relocate its headquarters from Leverkusen to Cologne, Germany. The move is to be completed by 2011. Lanxess has begun discussions with the city of Cologne to identify possible sites. Currently approximately half of the 15,000 Lanxess employees worldwide are based there. Key management functions at Lanxess are currently located in a number of buildings throughout the Leverkusen Chempark. These management functions will be consolidated under one roof at the new group headquarters building. Planning is for approximately 500 of some 8,000 Lanxess employees in Germany to be relocated to the new building.

Leverkusen will continue to play a central role for Lanxess in the future. “Leverkusen will remain our biggest and most important production location worldwide, with the most employees,” said Axel Heitmann, chairman for the board of management of Lanxess. “We will maintain our high level of commitment here in the future as well. Alone this year and next we will be investing around €200 million at the site.”

ROHM AND HAAS KANKAKEE
PLANT RECEIVES EPA AWARD

The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) has awarded Rohm and Haas Kankakee, IL facility with their National Environmental Performance Track Award for progress toward achieving environmental performance goals and the breadth and challenge of those goals.

The Rohm and Haas Kankakee site was acknowledged for reducing total energy consumption by 28%, water usage by more than four million gallons or 12%, and eliminating its use of ferric chloride by developing a replacement process with their local munici-

pality. The award is in recognition of improvements recorded in 2006. These achievements were reached even as its production increased by 18%.

“Results are what are most important to the EPA,” said Kevin Traynor, plant manager. “We drove our efforts to deliver a more environmentally-friendly facility and maintained a

PRICING CHANGES

Alberdingk Boley: Aug. 1—$0.03/lb. increase for all products.

BASF: Effective immediately—10% increase on acetylene-based specialty intermediates; July 1—$0.97/lb. increase for solid resins and polyols and $0.049/lb. increase for emulsions, solutions and additives in North America.

Cray Valley: Aug. 1—$0.09/lb. increase for its Wingtack resins product line.

Cytec: July 15—$0.10-$0.18/lb. increase on amino crosslinking resins, $0.40/lb. increase on benzoquanamine resins, $0.03- $0.13/lb. increase on a variety of liquid coating resins and additives; Aug. 1—4-16% increase on selected UV/EB curable monomers, oligomers, photoinitiators and Vancryl acrylic resins.

Dow Chemical: Sept. 1—$0.03-$0.15/lb. increase on oxygenated solvents in North America.

DuPont: Aug. 1—$0.15/lb. increase for bulk tank truck and rail car and $0.20/lb. increase for drums of acrylic monomers and acrylates in North America and Latin America. Evonik: Aug. 15—at least 10% increase for Vestanat crosslinkers in the U.S.; Oct. 1— 8% increase for Vestamin in NAFTA. Huber: July 1—8-12% increase for specialty grade silica and silicates.

Michelman: July 14—15-25% increase on coatings and additives in the Americas. Sartomer: Sept. 1—3-15% increase for its acrylate and methacrylate monomers and oligomers in the Americas.

competitive position at the same time.” The Kankakee plant manufactures water-based polymers for the paint and coatings industry.

WACKER DISCONTINUES PRODUCTION OF PIOLOFORM Wacker Chemie will discontinue production of its Pioloform polymer

Silberline: Sept. 15—$0.20/lb. energy sur-
charge.
Southern Clay Products: Aug. 1—5-15%
increase for waterborne rheological additives,
castors and wax derivatives.
Sun Chemical Performance Pigments:
July 1—10-30% increase for pigments
worldwide.
Tronox: July 15—$150/ton increase for all
titanium dioxide grades in Mexico and Latin
America; Aug. 1—€80/ton increase for all
titanium dioxide grades in Europe.
Wacker Polymers: Sept. 1—€40/ton
increase for Airflex, Vinac, Flexbond and
Flexcryl dispersions in Europe.

DISTRIBUTOR APPOINTMENTS

BASF has appointed D. H. Litter Co. as its exclusive distributor for its Acronal, Acronal Optive, Butofan, Butonal, Styrofan and Styronal latex dispersion products in ME. NH, VT, MA, CT, RI, NY, NJ, PA, MD, DE, WV and VA. Fuji Silysia Chemical has appointed Majemac Southeast, LLC as its distributor for its amorphous silica in MS, AL and GA. Scott Bader Co. Ltd. has appointed Univar GmbH as its distributor for its complete range of water-based acrylics, solvent-based resins and water-based thickeners.