Chexpress - March 22, 2011

North America

Purchase

Berkshire Hathaway has agreed to purchase Lubrizol in a transaction valued at $9.7 billion. The companies expect to complete the deal in the third quarter of this year. Berkshire intends to retain Lubrizol’s management and run it as a subsidiary, keeping its Wickliffe, Ohio headquarters in place.

Production Plan Changed

Bayer CropScience is abandoning plans to resume production in Institute, West Virginia of a toxic chemical that killed thousands of people in Bhopal, India. Bayer broke the news during a federal court hearing in a lawsuit brought by residents seeking to stop the company from restarting the unit that produces methyl isocyanate, or MIC. Bayer decided not to restart production because it faced at least a one-month delay of its planned restart because of an ongoing federal Occupational Safety and Health Administration inspection. The ongoing delays made the company’s plan to supply market needs beginning in 2011 no longer viable.

Acquisition

Buckeye Partners, L.P. has signed a definitive agreement with BP Products North America Inc. and its affiliates to acquire 33 refined petroleum products terminals with a total storage capacity of more than 10 million barrels and approximately 1,000 miles of refined petroleum products pipelines, including BP’s 50% interest in Inland Corporation, for a total of $225 million. The terminal and pipeline assets are located in the Midwestern, Southeastern, and Western United States.

Biofuel Refinery

Piedmont BioProducts plans to build a commercial refinery in the Gretna Industrial Park in Pittsylvania County, Virginia. The facility would convert feedstock to oil. The company hopes to begin building the project in 2012 and start operating in late 2012 or early 2013. The facility would start out with capacity to convert 50 to 100 tons of material to about 6,000 gallons of oil/day. Later-phase production capacity would enable turning 500 tons of feedstock into about 60,000 gallons/day.

Composite Application Lab

BASF has opened its new epoxy composite laboratory at its technical center in Tarrytown, New York. The new epoxy composite laboratory brings together BASF’s technical capabilities for epoxy systems to support the development of new epoxy composite applications. The investment is part of the company’s overall strategy to provide customers with a global networking of technical support. BASF also has epoxy composite technical centers in Ludwigshafen, Germany and Shanghai, China.

World

Natural Gas Recovery Facility

Saudi Aramco has selected Samsung Engineering Co. to build its Shaybah natural gas recovery facility. The project includes the engineering, procurement and construction of all four packages linked to the facility. The recovery plant is part of Aramco’s commitment to supply gas to the local market.

Expansion

Cabot Corp. will spend more than $180 million to expand manufacturing capacity in Asia, South America and Europe to boost production of the company’s carbon black output by 15% or more. The expansions will be in China, Indonesia, Brazil, Argentina and three European locations by the end of 2013.

Contract

Cameron International Corp. has received a contract from ConocoPhillips worth about $200 million to provide equipment and services on two new platforms offshore Norway. The contract is subject to government approval for development and operation of the platforms. The multi-year agreement includes Cameron furnishing surface wellheads and other drilling equipment for multiple wells and has an additional provision for maintenance.

Butadiene Plant

Korea Kumho Petrochemical Co. has signed a deal with JG Summit Petrochemical Corp. (JGSPC) to setup a joint venture to build a butadiene plant. The 50-50 joint venture will be built in Bantangas, the Philippines.