Single distributor
Rohm and Haas has moved to a single U.S. distributor for its North American architectural and functional coatings business, effective January 1.  Chemcentral, whom Rohm and Haas has had a 10-year-plus relationship with, will be the single distributor.

Carbon Credits
Cemtrex will expand the scope of its activities in the carbon credits market to include energy efficiency projects.  These projects include refurbishment of power plants, combined cycle turbines, improvements of heating plants, process heat recovery, and facility space heating and lighting.

Titanium Tetrachloride Supply
DuPont will supply up to 100 million pounds of high purity titanium tetrachloride annually to Allegheny’s new titanium metal plant in Toole County, Utah.  The new facility will make approximately 10,000 tons of titanium metal each year.  DuPont plans to invest $30 million in its New Johnsonville, Tennessee titanium dioxide plant to install a new purification unit to make titanium tetrachloride.  The new unit should begin operations in the summer of 2008.  Because of its titanium dioxide manufacturing technology, DuPont will be able to increase titanium tetrachloride production without affecting the company’s capacity to produce titanium dioxide at New Johnsonville.

HBr facility
Albemarle Corporation has added a production and packaging unit for merchant sales of industrial-grade N28 anhydrous Hydrogen Bromide (HBr) in Magnolia, Arkansas.  Qualification samples from the unit should be available before the end of October, with packaging and shipping of the product to customers to begin in December.  Anydrous HBr is used in the synthesis of fine chemicals as well as for plasma etching in the electronics industry.

Hydrogen Fueling
Air Products’ hydrogen fueling technology is in use at BP’s dedicated new hydrogen fueling station at the NextEnergyCenter in Detroit, Michigan.  The station is part of a U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) project designed to facilitate the field-testing of fuel cell vehicles and fueling infrastructure in the U.S.  The BP hydrogen station features Air Products’ hydrogen fueling technology that is now in place in more than 50 fueling stations worldwide.  The hydrogen fueling facility in Detroit has the capacity to store 50 kilograms of hydrogen and dispense 20 to 40 kilograms of hydrogen/day.  The BP station will supply fuel to DaimlerChrysler fuel cell vehicles.

Bio units purchased
Lonza acquired Cambrex’s Bioproducts and Biopharma subsidiaries in a cash deal worth $460 million, marking the largest acquisition in Lonza’s history to date.  The acquisition will close in the first quarter of 2007 and is expected to grow sales 8% to 12% a year, with EBIT (earnings before interest and taxes) growth in the mid- to high teens.  This growth should sustain through to 2012.

Plant upgrades
Lonza is upgrading its Portsmouth, New Hampshire biopharmaceutical facility.  It expects to start new Phase II/Phase III mid-scale mammalian cell culture tanks in 2008 (1 x 5,000 liters) and 2009 (4 – 6 x 5,000 liters).  In addition, it will start up large-scale capacity in 2009 with four 20,000 liter mammalian cell culture tanks in Singapore.  Lonza also plans to upgrade its Visp, Switzerland facility with a new 15,000 liter microbial fermentation tank.